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The UK prison population has risen by around 74% since 1990, with 78,037 people now serving sentences. Research shows that taking part in educational activities while serving a sentence can help people cope with prison life and reduce reoffending.
There is an education department in every prison typically offering academic courses such as literacy and numeracy, and vocational courses such as joinery and bricklaying. However, numbers of people engaging in prison education are declining as it becomes increasingly undervalued and under-resourced. So, it’s vital to develop engaging educational activities in prisons.
One way to do this is to link education with family activities. Around half of the people in prison have children. Maintaining good relationships between parents and their children during a sentence can reduce reoffending and help people to reintegrate with their families upon release. It can also help children to better cope with someone close to them being in prison.
However, it is challenging to maintain family relationships because of the lack of meaningful contact between prisoners and their children. With our White Water Writers project, we believed that linking education with family activities would encourage prisoners who might not typically participate in education to get involved, and help foster better family relationships.
White Water Writers (WWW) gives groups of eight to ten people the opportunity to collaboratively plan, write and publish a full-length novel in just one week. Books go on sale online and the authors receive professionally printed copies of their novels. Originally developed in schools, WWW has enabled more than 3,000 young people to become published authors.
We decided to run the project in a prison to provide an engaging and motivating educational opportunity. We linked the work to families by inviting participants to write a novel for their children, who would then produce the illustrations for the book. Our research explored the impact WWW had on both the prisoners and their families.
Eight men from a prison in England took part, and were given four days to collaboratively write and publish a novel for their children, supported by a facilitator and prison staff.
A key principle of WWW is that no one from outside the group is involved in developing the plot, writing or editing. On the first day, each writer created their own character and, together, the group developed the plot. On the second and third days, they collaboratively wrote their novel. On the fourth day, they proofread it – and then the final day was a family day, where children visited the prison and produced the illustrations.
While the writers were initially a little daunted at the prospect of writing a novel, they worked hard to produce something their children would enjoy – the result was an exciting fantasy adventure of around 8,000 words. To understand the impact of the project, we then interviewed the writers, their families and prison staff about their experiences, as well as analysing their novel.
The book helped the children to better understand their fathers’ experiences. It had two main themes: “people not being bad” and “people changing for the better”. The villains in the book are not bad people. Rather, they experience difficult circumstances which lead to challenging emotions, and these in turn lead to bad behaviours.
However, by the end of the novel, the villains are reformed. For example, one character, who is a bear, is in prison at the start of the book but wants to change his life. The book ends with him putting his life at risk to save the world.
Many of the writers included their own children in the novel as characters. This helped them connect with their children, who enjoyed seeing themselves in the book. One participant said he wrote the plotline of his daughter becoming braver in the story to help her deal with the anxiety she was feeling about moving to a new school.
The writers said they would not have engaged with WWW if it had not been linked to their families. The family visit day was an incentive, and they enjoyed creating something tangible for their children. All the authors said they improved a range of skills including writing, typing, computer skills and “soft skills” such as teamwork.
As many had negative experiences of education and few had any formal qualifications, they did not expect to complete the novel. Their success led them to feel proud of themselves: “The fact that I can write a thousand words, I am stunned,” one said.
The project also led the men and their families to feel more connected to each other. Family members discussed feelings of pride in what the writers had achieved.
We even discovered that one of the children had dressed as her character for World Book Day at school. She told her teacher about the book, and the class then used it as their reading book. One member of prison staff said:
How that child must feel to have something positive from her daddy and to share that with her classmates. I certainly didn’t expect that, and I think it’s a massive success and has obviously had an impact.
This suggests that linking projects with families, where appropriate, may be a way to increase engagement with education and provide meaningful opportunities for contact between people in prison and their families. This will have positive results not just for those in prison, but for their families as well.
Yvonne Skipper is a Trustee for the Charity eQuality Time which runs the White Water Writers project. She has received funding from Novus Prison Education, the British Academy, EPSRC and ESRC.
Imagine what life would be like if you couldn’t recognise your own family and friends unless they told you who they were. Now imagine no one will believe you and that even your doctor dismisses you, saying everyone forgets names sometimes.
Two recent studies show this is a common experience for people with a brain disorder called “developmental prosopagnosia” – or as it is more informally known, faceblindness. This type of prosopagnosia is lifelong, in contrast to “acquired prosopagnosia” which can develop after a brain injury. Sufferers struggle to recognise people who they know well and, in extreme cases, close family members and even photographs of themselves.
No one is sure why people develop this condition but it can run in families, suggesting it might have a genetic basis. It is estimated to afflict 2-3% of the adult population.
One of the studies, published in December 2022, comes from my lab at Edge Hill University. Our results suggested that up to 85% of people with faceblindness would not get diagnosed if they tried traditional approaches. For example, if participants complained to their doctor that they were failing to recognise friends and family members, they were often told their face recognition skills were normal. This can have a terrible impact on people, leaving them confused, frustrated and upset.
Researchers at Harvard University published a paper in February 2023 that came to the same conclusion: many people with faceblindness won’t get a diagnosis from their clinician using current medical assessments. The current procedure requires people to score worse than 97.5% of the general public on both of two computer-based tests.
The first of these tasks is a “famous faces” test, where patients have to identify celebrities from their photographs (for example, Brad Pitt or Bill Clinton). In the second task, patients are asked to memorise a series of unfamiliar faces, then pick them out from a larger group – similar to how you would identify a criminal suspect in a police line-up.
This is the most common approach used by clinicians and researchers across Europe, North America and Australasia. However, the Harvard research and that by my own lab found that many prosopagnosia cases would not meet the criteria currently required for a diagnosis.
Our study tested 61 people who reported daily difficulties recognising faces. Assessments were carried out online due to COVID-19 restrictions, and we found that 85% of participants would not have met the diagnosis threshold on the computer tests. The Harvard study suggested that roughly 60-70% of people who struggle to recollect faces may be denied a diagnosis.
Why do people with prosopagnosia perform too well on medical tests to get a diagnosis? One reason may be because of day-to-day changes in their ability to focus – for example, did they have a coffee this morning, or a good night’s sleep? Previous research has shown prosopagnosics’ scores on face tests change from one testing session to the next.
Computer-based tests may also be missing something about how we recognise faces in person. In the real world, we see faces in three dimensions, and they are moving as someone walks towards us and speaks. The current tests only use still images in two dimensions.
So, how should we diagnose prosopagnosia instead? While the Harvard group and I agree that we need to be much more understanding towards people who believe they have the condition, we differ in our views on how this should be accomplished.
The Harvard lab proposes we should diagnose people with prosopagnosia if they score in the bottom 16% of the general population on the two face recognition tests. One problem with this approach is that it will still block many people who report trouble with faces from getting help.
I would argue we should be guided by the patient’s symptoms when deciding on a diagnosis. Symptoms can be assessed by asking people how strongly they agree with statements like “I often mistake people I have met before for strangers”. These are taken from a questionnaire called the prosopagnosia index, first developed by a British research group in 2015.
This approach is used for other psychological conditions such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Only with this method can we understand the range of the prosopagnosia spectrum, and avoid unnecessary suffering that comes with a lack of diagnosis.
The prosopagnosia index only takes a couple of minutes to administer, while computer based tests can take up to an hour. Diagnosing people more rapidly gives doctors more time to discuss options with their patients, such as computer training with faces and coping mechanisms. The latter includes telling friends and colleagues about your condition, and requesting they introduce themselves each time you meet.
Research in this area is ongoing so if you, or someone you know, thinks they might have prosopagnosia (either acquired or developmental) and would like to be tested, or you have failed to get a diagnosis in the past from a clinician, please consider taking part.
For those who might still be sceptical, I should add: faceblindness is a real disorder. People with this condition have atypical neural responses when they view faces. This suggests their brains are not functioning as they should be when they visualise faces.
If you happen to meet someone with faceblindness – and the chances are very high, given that one in 30 may have the condition – please be understanding. Give them cues as to who you are and where you met them. A little patience can make all the difference.
Edwin Burns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
If you’ve ever flipped through the pages of a women’s lifestyle magazine, there’s a good chance you’ve stumbled onto a quiz promising to answer the question “what is your love language?”.
Or if social media is more your speed, there’s no shortage of tweets, memes, GIFs and TikToks bringing the concept of “love languages” into the mainstream.
This theory originated from a book published in 1992, The Five Love Languages, written by American author and pastor Gary Chapman. Chapman began to notice trends in couples he was counselling, perceiving they were misunderstanding each other’s needs.
This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.
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The five love languages he subsequently proposed are words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service and receiving gifts. A preference to express and receive love in one of these ways over the others would be an indication of a person’s principal love language.
So, what can we make of the theory of love languages? Is there evidence behind it? Let’s take a look.
Everyone uses the word “love”, but in many respects, romantic love defies a precise definition. It’s a rather nebulous construct, comprising different components which are displayed and experienced in a variety of ways.
Although the love languages model has gained in popularity, it was developed based on observations, rather than rigorous research. And there’s been minimal scientific evidence published to date to support the idea that people generally prefer to express and receive love in one of these five ways, or exploring how these love languages influence relationships.
Similarly, any “quiz” used to determine people’s love language has no integrity as a scientifically valid test.
All this said, it would seem that people have a fascination with identifying their own and others’ love languages.
Read more: What is love?
Compatibility in relationships is important. Couples who are similar, as opposed to opposites, tend to be more attracted to one another, and have more sustainable relationships.
Chapman suggests that when relationship partners have different love languages it can lead to misunderstandings. An example would be if one partner likes holding hands (physical touch) and the other does not, or if one partner likes receiving compliments (words of affirmation) and the other doesn’t give them.
Likewise, Chapman has suggested that couples who “speak” the same love language should have a better relationship. But the research on this has been mixed.
For example, a study published in 2017 failed to find that partners sharing the same love language was linked to increased levels of relationship satisfaction. However, a 2022 study found that when partners shared the same love language they reported higher levels of both relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction.
Chapman also suggested that for a couple where the love language doesn’t match, learning a partner’s love language can facilitate communication and alleviate misunderstandings. He argued that if a person can determine and enact their partner’s love language, this will pave the way for greater relationship satisfaction.
With Valentine’s Day coming up, it might be a good time to reflect on your partner’s love language and how you can be guided by it in marking the day. For example, if they favour words of affirmation, carefully consider what you write in their card. If their love language is acts of service, you might like to cook their favourite meal.
Whether or not there is science in this particular theory might not matter so much. There is little doubt there’s value to be found in expressing your love for your partner in a thoughtful way.
Martin Graff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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