Learning Throughout Life
page 6 VOICE
The Journal of the Down Syndrome Associaon of Victoria
SPRING 2007
Language Profiles
During the 1970s and 1980s, there was muchresearch effort into idenfying languagepaerns of children with Down syndrome.
There was also some debate about whethertheir language could be described as delayed
(that is, the same as in normal development,but behind) or different (that is, they weredoing something different to that seenin normal development. Jon Miller hassummarised much of this early work. He notedthat, at least in terms of language producon,when compared to children of similar IQ levelsor stages of language development, children
with Down syndrome do not do anything
different. Hence, in terms of the order inwhich language structures developed, and therelaonship between the number of wordscombined and grammacal endings used,there was no disnct Down syndrome paern.This finding seemed to support the noon thatlanguage development in Down syndromeis delayed, but not different to that seen inchildren without developmental disability.Some of these early studies have indicated,however, that there does seem to besomething different about languagedevelopment in children with Down syndromein terms of two paerns. The first paern
is a mismatch between aspects of language
development. In parcular, children withDown syndrome have been shown tohave comprehension skills that are moreadvanced than their producon skills. This
mismatch appears to persist from early
childhood through to adulthood. Withincomprehension, a further developmental
mismatch has been found with understanding
of vocabulary appearing to be an area of
strength, while understanding sentence
and grammacal structures falls behind. Animportant implicaon of this paern is thatin order to obtain an accurate profile of thecomprehension skills of children and adultswith Down syndrome, tesng must includecomprehension of vocabulary, grammar andsentences, rather than only one of these.The second disnct paern found in children
with Down syndrome is the occurrence of
plateaus in language growth: that is, wheredevelopment seems to slow right down andeven come to a stand sll for an extendedperiod of me. The first plateau occurs indeveloping single words. Preschool childrenwith Down syndrome appear to experiencesome difficulty with the emergence of spokenwords. The teaching of signs has been foundto assist with the transion to a sizeablespoken vocabulary, with the use of signsoen dropped as spoken word producontakes over. A second plateau can appear inmoving from single to 2-word combinaons.In children without disability, once theirspoken vocabulary reaches about 50 words,they start using 2-word combinaons (e.g.,“more apple,” “go shop,” “big dog”). Children
with Down syndrome, on the other hand,
oen don’t start combining words ll theirvocabulary reaches around 200 words. The
An important implicaonof this study was that tesng com
-
prehensionof individualswith Down
syndromemust extend
beyond
simple tests
of vocabulary
to includegrammar and syntax to
ensure that comprehen
-sion skills are
not over-
esmated.
Continued LanguageDevelopment into Adulthood
by Teresa Iacono PhD
Centre for Developmental Disability Health VictoriaMonash University
Most people with Down syndrome experience some degree of communicaonimpairment, although the extent can vary dramacally across individuals. Areas of communicaon that can cause difficulty include arculaon (resulngin various degrees of intelligibility), fluency, and language. Interesngly, the funconal and social uses of language appear to be a relave strength for people with Down syndrome, although some may experience difficules arising from speech or language impairments. The focus of this arcle is the profileof language ability in people with Down syndrome, and recent evidence for connued learning into adulthood.
Learning Throughout Life
VOICE
The Journal of the Down Syndrome Associaon of Victoria
SPRING 2007
page 7
use of signs or aided augmentave andalternave communicaon systems (e.g.,picture boards or electronic devices withpictures) have been found to assist children inovercoming this apparent hurdle from singlewords to word combinaons.A developmental plateau that has causedparcular concern over the potenal forconnued language growth was documentedby Anne Fowler and colleagues. Longitudinalstudies, whereby language development isfollowed over a period of me, provide ameans of idenfying paerns of languagedevelopment. These researchers conducted
such studies, beginning with Rebecca, who
was assessed monthly from the age of 51to 89 months (approx. 4-7 years) and thenevery 6 months up unl 108 months (9 years).Rebecca was tested as having an IQ of 57. Sheshowed relavely rapid language developmentup unl the point at which she was combining
words, and also using some word endings
(e.g., the “s” at the end of a word to markplurality – cups). This stage of languagedevelopment marks the beginning of the useof more complex sentences, such as throughelaborang various parts of the sentence,using more sophiscated word endings anddeveloping the verb system (e.g., “I run,” “heruns,” “she is going”).Fowler and her colleagues found that
Rebecca’s progress slowed right down just
prior to developing these more complexlanguage forms. These and other researchershave found a similar paern in other childrenwith Down syndrome. The concern withwhat appears to be arrested developmentat the point of more complex grammar andsentences has been that even if growthconnues, it appears to be at a slow pace.
The danger is that the child will fail to catch
up sufficiently to allow the development
of fully mature, or correct and complete
sentence producon. Hence, it may be thatthese children and adolescents miss a cricalperiod. An unfortunate result of Fowler’s workhas been the interpretaon that languagedevelopment ceases in late childhood oradolescence in people with Down syndrome.
Factors Contributing to
Language Difficulties
A number of factors have been exploredas potenally contribung to the languagedelays experienced by individuals withDown syndrome. In addion to the presence
of intellectual disability, these include the
frequent occurrence of hearing impairment,slow brain growth, arculaon difficules, andenvironmental factors. None of these factors(other than intellectual disability) appear toaccount fully for the parcular difficulesthat people with Down syndrome have withlanguage development, parcularly withgrammar and syntax comprehension andproducon.What could be influencing languagedevelopment are problems with rememberingand processing speech. Speech is perceivedauditorily (through the sense of hearing),and occurs as a sequence of sound units.There is a great deal of research evidencethat processing such auditory and sequenalinformaon is parcularly difficult for people
with Down syndrome and results in them
having difficulty remembering sequences of spoken informaon – referred to as auditoryshort term memory. This ability is oen testedby having the person repeat increasinglylong series of digits. Most people with Down
syndrome are unable to remember more
than 3 units, compared to the average of 7for people without disability. Research hasshown that assessment tasks that over-tax anindividual’s short-term memory may fail to
show a true picture of the person’s language
skills. Also, a recent study by Robin Chapman
and her colleagues showed that adults andadolescents with Down syndrome tended to
use more complex grammar and syntax inshorter uerances than in longer ones. Thisresult suggested a potenal trade-off betweencomplexity and length caused by reducedauditory short-term memory. Therefore, theearlier studies may not have provided a trueindicaon of language skills in children withDown syndrome.
Evidence ofContinued LanguageDevelopment intoAdulthood
Recently, a number of studies of adults into
their early 20s have provided evidence thatlanguage development does not stop inadolescence or earlier, as was once suggested.In fact, these studies have shown that 24
A factor that
does seem to
be a potenal significant contributor is problemswith remem
-
bering and
processing
verbal informaon
presented auditorily and
sequenally,as is the casewith speech.
...continued on page 12
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Continued Language Development Into Adulthood
Most people with Down syndrome experience some degree of communication impairment, although the extent can vary dramatically across individuals. Areas of communication that can cause difficulty include articulation (resulting in various degrees of intelligibility), fluency, and…
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