Cleave Patricia L, Kay-Raining Bird Elizabeth, Trudeau Natacha, Sutton Ann
Dalhousie University, Canada.
Dalhousie University, Canada.
J Commun Disord. 2014 May-Jun;49:42-54. doi: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2014.02.006. Epub 2014 Feb 22.
The purpose of the study was to add to our knowledge of bilingual learning in children with Down syndrome (DS) using a syntactic bootstrapping task.
Four groups of children and youth matched on non-verbal mental age participated. There were 14 bilingual participants with DS (DS-B, mean age 12;5), 12 monolingual participants with DS (DS-M, mean age 10;10), 9 bilingual typically developing children (TD-B; mean age 4;1) and 11 monolingual typically developing children (TD-M; mean age 4;1). The participants completed a computerized syntactic bootstrapping task involving unfamiliar nouns and verbs. The syntactic cues employed were a for the nouns and ing for the verbs.
Performance was better on nouns than verbs. There was also a main effect for group. Follow-up t-tests revealed that there were no significant differences between the TD-M and TD-B or between the DS-M and DS-B groups. However, the DS-M group performed more poorly than the TD-M group with a large effect size. Analyses at the individual level revealed a similar pattern of results.
There was evidence that Down syndrome impacted performance; there was no evidence that bilingualism negatively affected the syntactic bootstrapping skills of individuals with DS. These results from a dynamic language task are consistent with those of previous studies that used static or product measures. Thus, the results are consistent with the position that parents should be supported in their decision to provide bilingual input to their children with DS.
Readers of this article will identify (1) research evidence regarding bilingual development in children with Down syndrome and (2) syntactic bootstrapping skills in monolingual and bilingual children who are typically developing or who have Down syndrome.
本研究旨在通过一项句法引导任务，增加我们对唐氏综合征（DS）儿童双语学习的了解。
四组在非言语心理年龄上匹配的儿童和青少年参与了研究。有14名患有DS的双语参与者（DS-B，平均年龄12岁5个月），12名患有DS的单语参与者（DS-M，平均年龄10岁10个月），9名发育正常的双语儿童（TD-B；平均年龄4岁1个月）和11名发育正常的单语儿童（TD-M；平均年龄4岁1个月）。参与者完成了一项涉及不熟悉名词和动词的计算机化句法引导任务。使用的句法线索是名词用“a”，动词用“ing”。
名词方面的表现优于动词。组间也存在主效应。后续的t检验显示，TD-M和TD-B组之间或DS-M和DS-B组之间没有显著差异。然而，DS-M组的表现比TD-M组差得多，效应量很大。个体水平的分析显示了类似的结果模式。
有证据表明唐氏综合征会影响表现；没有证据表明双语会对患有DS的个体的句法引导技能产生负面影响。这项动态语言任务的结果与之前使用静态或成果测量的研究结果一致。因此，这些结果与应支持父母为患有DS的孩子提供双语输入这一观点相符。
本文读者将了解到（1）关于唐氏综合征儿童双语发展的研究证据，以及（2）发育正常或患有唐氏综合征的单语和双语儿童的句法引导技能。
