The acquisition of different classes of words in Spanish children with Down syndrome.

PURPOSE: The primary aim of this study was to analyze the acquisition of different classes of words in Spanish-speaking children with Down syndrome (DS), with special emphasis on nouns and verbs. A second objective was to compare the results obtained with those reported by Checa et al. (2016), who used a different measure to study vocabulary composition. METHOD: We studied 108 children with DS and 108 children with typical development (TD), with mental ages between 9 and 29 months (DS M = 21;26 months;days, TD M = 20;23) and chronological ages between 8;24 and 68;19 months;days (mean = 41;11 and 20;19 for DS and TD, respectively). Children were matched individually for size of productive vocabulary and gender. Data were gathered using the MacArthur-Bates CDIs, adapted to the profile of children with DS (the CDI-Down). Relative proportions were used as the measure of vocabulary. RESULTS: The results differed from those obtained by Checa et al. (2016) when using absolute proportions to examine vocabulary composition. The most significant difference was the trend among children with DS to produce fewer verbs and closed-class words (articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and auxiliaries). There were no differences in the production of nouns and social words. CONCLUSIONS: The tendency of children with DS to produce fewer verbs and closed-class words could be due to difficulties with morphology and syntax. This underlines the importance of morphosyntactic skills for learning these classes of words. The methodological and clinical implications of the results are discussed.

Adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories for Spanish Children With Down Syndrome: Validity and Reliability Data for Vocabulary.

PURPOSE: The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories are widely used to study early language and communicative development. We recently developed a Spanish version for children with Down syndrome (the CDI-Down) adapted to their particular profile of linguistic and communicative development. The principal aims of this study are to assess the concurrent validity and test-retest reliability of the vocabulary section of this adaptation. METHOD: Validation for productive vocabulary (Study 1) was achieved by correlating CDI-Down scores on expressive vocabulary and measures on the basis of spontaneous speech samples (n = 29). Validation for receptive vocabulary (Study 2) was achieved by correlating CDI-Down scores on receptive vocabulary and measures derived from language items of the Brunet-Lézine Scale (Josse, 1997; n = 70). Reliability (Study 3) was measured with a subset of parents who completed the same inventory 4 months after the original sampling (n = 26). RESULTS: CDI-Down expressive and receptive vocabulary scores showed a significant positive relationship with their comparison measures, thereby demonstrating convergent validity. A significant positive relationship was also found between test-retest measures for productive and receptive vocabularies, thus supporting the reliability of the adaptation. CONCLUSION: The results demonstrate that the CDI-Down is a valid and reliable tool that could be useful for parents, teachers, clinicians, and researchers.

Early grammatical development in Spanish children with Down syndrome.

The objective of this work was to analyze morphosyntactic development in a wide sample of children with Down syndrome (DS) (n = 92) and children with typical development (TD) (n = 92) with a mental age (MA) of 20 to 29 months. Children were individually matched for gender and MA (Analysis 1) and for vocabulary size (Analysis 2). Information about morphosyntax was obtained using an adaptation of the CDI for children with DS. In both analyses, the number of children with DS and with TD who combined words was similar. Analysis 1 showed that children with DS produced shorter utterances, with less morphosyntactic complexity and less morphological suffixes than children with TD, despite having the same mental age. The developmental pattern was similar, although slower in children with DS. Analysis 2 showed that the performance of children with DS was lower than the performance of children with TD in relation to morphosyntactic complexity and morphological suffixes.

The development of vocabulary in Spanish children with Down syndrome: comprehension, production, and gestures.

BACKGROUND: Our main purpose was to compare the lexical development of Spanish children with Down syndrome (DS) and children with typical development (TD) to investigate the relationship between cognitive and vocabulary development in comprehension and oral and gestural production. METHOD: Participants were 186 children with DS and 186 children with TD, with a mental age (MA) of 8-29 months and matched on gender and MA. Information about vocabulary was obtained using a new Spanish adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates CDI for children with DS. RESULTS: No significant differences in oral production were found. Lexical comprehension and gestural production of children with DS were superior. Similar to children with TD, gestural production in children with DS decreased as oral production increased. CONCLUSION: Our study provides evidence to support that lexical comprehension and gesture production are strengths in children with DS. With respect to oral production, our results do not support a specific dissociation between cognitive and lexical development.

El desarrollo de la morfosintaxis en niños con síndrome de Down: primeros datos normativos / No disponible

El objetivo del presente trabajo es ofrecer datos normativos sobre el desarrollo morfosintáctico en niños con síndrome de Down a fin de poder contar con tablas de referencia sobre dicho desarrollo para esta población. Los participantes fueron 129 niños con síndrome de Down de 16 a 29 meses de edad mental divididos en 7 grupos. Como medida, se empleó el Inventario de Desarrollo Comunicativo MacArthur-Bates adaptado al perfil evolutivo de los niños con síndrome de Down. Las normas obtenidas son de gran relevancia para la investigación y la intervención. En el caso de esta última, permiten situar a un niño determinado con respecto a su grupo de referencia, identificar aspectos de las habilidades comunicativas y lingüísticas que puedan servir de objetivos para la intervención, evaluar los cambios que puedan ser un resultado del tratamiento, etc. Los datos normativos obtenidos son los primeros que se presentan en español (AU)

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