Boudreau D M, Chapman R S
Waisman Center on Mental Retardation and Human Development, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2000 Oct;43(5):1146-59. doi: 10.1044/jslhr.4305.1146.
Children and adolescents with Down syndrome present with greater difficulty in expressive language than nonverbal cognitive domains. As narratives involve an understanding of the relationship(s) between events and their verbal expression, this divergence has implications for understanding narrative abilities in persons with Down syndrome. In this project, we investigated the relationship between event representation and linguistic expression in narratives of children and adolescents with Down syndrome (n = 31) and groups of typically developing children matched for mental age (n = 31), syntax comprehension (n = 28), or expressive language (n = 27). A short wordless film, the Pear Story (Chafe, 1980), was viewed individually by each participant and then each participant retold the story to an adult who (presumably) had not seen the film. Findings suggest a disparate relationship between linguistic expression and event representation in narratives of children and adolescents with Down syndrome. Participants with Down syndrome produced narratives that were significantly longer and more complex than the expressive-language-matched-group, with no differences observed in event structure when compared to the MA-matched group. Comparatively, use of linguistic devices and cohesion were poorer in the children and adolescents with Down syndrome than in the MA-matched children, with no differences observed in comparison to children matched for expressive language.
患有唐氏综合征的儿童和青少年在表达性语言方面比非语言认知领域存在更大困难。由于叙事涉及对事件之间关系的理解及其语言表达，这种差异对于理解唐氏综合征患者的叙事能力具有重要意义。在本项目中，我们调查了患有唐氏综合征的儿童和青少年（n = 31）与按心理年龄匹配（n = 31）、句法理解能力匹配（n = 28）或表达性语言能力匹配（n = 27）的典型发育儿童组在叙事中事件表征与语言表达之间的关系。每位参与者单独观看一部简短的无声电影《梨的故事》（Chafe，1980），然后每位参与者向一位（大概）没看过这部电影的成年人复述这个故事。研究结果表明，患有唐氏综合征的儿童和青少年在叙事中语言表达与事件表征之间存在不同的关系。患有唐氏综合征的参与者所生成的叙事比表达性语言能力匹配组的要长得多且复杂得多，与心理年龄匹配组相比，在事件结构上未观察到差异。相比之下，患有唐氏综合征的儿童和青少年在语言手段和衔接的运用上比心理年龄匹配的儿童要差，与表达性语言能力匹配的儿童相比未观察到差异。
