Næss Kari-Anne B, Lervåg Arne, Lyster Solveig-Alma Halaas, Hulme Charles
Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, 0318 Oslo, Norway.
Department of Education, University of Oslo, 0318 Oslo, Norway.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2015 Jul;135:43-55. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.02.004. Epub 2015 Mar 25.
Children with Down syndrome are at risk for language difficulties, the nature of which is not well understood. This study compared the longitudinal predictors of language skills in children with Down syndrome with those in typically developing control children matched for initial level of nonverbal mental ability. An age cohort of children with Down syndrome (n=43) and 57 typically developing control children was assessed on measures of vocabulary, grammar, and verbal short-term memory three times at yearly intervals. Children with Down syndrome showed slower development on all measures than the typically developing controls. Longitudinal analyses showed moderate to high stability of language and verbal short-term memory skills. Our results confirm earlier evidence of pervasive language learning difficulties in this group and suggest that early language intervention should be given high priority.
唐氏综合征患儿存在语言障碍风险，但其本质尚未得到充分理解。本研究比较了唐氏综合征患儿与非语言智力初始水平相匹配的正常发育对照儿童语言技能的纵向预测因素。对一个年龄队列中的43名唐氏综合征患儿和57名正常发育对照儿童，每年进行一次评估，共三次，评估内容包括词汇、语法和言语短期记忆。唐氏综合征患儿在所有指标上的发育都比正常发育的对照儿童缓慢。纵向分析表明，语言和言语短期记忆技能具有中度到高度的稳定性。我们的结果证实了该群体普遍存在语言学习困难的早期证据，并表明应高度重视早期语言干预。
