Mothers' use of substantive deixis and nouns with their children with Down syndrome: some discrepant findings.

Mothers of children with Down syndrome were compared to mothers of nonretarded children with regard to the proportions of substantive deixis and of nouns (as opposed to pronouns) they used from the time when their children were prelinguistic until after they had started to talk. Five comparisons were made. At the time of the first comparison, the children with Down syndrome ranged in age from 17 to 21 months. The nonretarded children were between 9 and 10 months old. None of the children could comprehend or produce language referentially. At the time of the fifth comparison, the children with Down syndrome were between 30 and 38 months old and the nonretarded children, between 16 and 20 months old. No significant differences were observed between the two groups of mothers for either proportion of substantive deixis or proportion of nouns. These results contrast with the results we obtained in a previous investigation (Cardoso-Martins & Mervis, 1985). Possible reasons for these discrepant findings were discussed.