Comblain A
University of Liege, Belgium.
Downs Syndr Res Pract. 1999 Sep;6(2):76-84. doi: 10.3104/reports.98.
Phonological short-term memory capacity is generally measured with a word span task or a digit span task. Another way to measure it is to use a nonword repetition task. Gathercole and Adams (1993) claimed that this procedure can be used with children as young as two-years old. It seems that in normally developing children the quality of nonword repetition is influenced both by the length of nonwords and by the degree of wordlikeness. Can the phonological short-term memory of individuals with Down syndrome be assessed with a nonword repetition task? In order to answer this question, we decided to replicate Gathercole and collaborators' experiments (1991,1993) but with individuals with Down syndrome. The quality of nonword repetition in individuals with Down syndrome is, as in normally developing children, influenced both by the length of nonwords and by their degree of wordlikeness. Furthermore, our results seem to confirm the hypothesis which states that nonwords are temporarily stored in the phonological short-term memory system. As this system has a limited capacity, both normally developing children and people with Down syndrome recall more short nonwords than long nonwords. In conclusion, nonword repetition is a reliable task with which to assess phonological short-term memory in individuals with Down syndrome as well as in normally developing children.
语音短期记忆容量通常通过单词广度任务或数字广度任务来测量。另一种测量方法是使用非单词重复任务。加瑟科尔和亚当斯（1993年）声称，这个程序可以用于年仅两岁的儿童。在正常发育的儿童中，非单词重复的质量似乎受到非单词长度和单词相似程度的影响。唐氏综合征患者的语音短期记忆能否通过非单词重复任务来评估？为了回答这个问题，我们决定重复加瑟科尔及其合作者（1991年、1993年）的实验，但对象是唐氏综合征患者。与正常发育的儿童一样，唐氏综合征患者的非单词重复质量受到非单词长度和单词相似程度的影响。此外，我们的结果似乎证实了这样一种假设，即非单词被暂时存储在语音短期记忆系统中。由于这个系统容量有限，正常发育的儿童和唐氏综合征患者对短非单词的回忆都多于长非单词。总之，非单词重复是一种可靠的任务，可用于评估唐氏综合征患者以及正常发育儿童的语音短期记忆。
