-Many children with Down syndrome have difficulty with speech intelligibility. The present study used a parent survey to learn more about a specific factor that affects speech intelligibility, i.e. childhood verbal apraxia. One of the factors that affects speech intelligibility for children with Down syndrome is difficulty with voluntarily programming, combining, organising, and sequencing the movements necessary for speech. Historically, this difficulty, childhood verbal apraxia, has not been identified or treated in children with Down syndrome but recent research has documented that symptoms of childhood verbal apraxia can be found in children with Down syndrome. The survey examined whether and to what extent childhood verbal apraxia is currently being identified and treated in children with Down syndrome. The survey then asked parents to identify certain speech characteristics that occur always, frequently, sometimes or never in their child's everyday speech. There were 1620 surveys received. Survey results indicated that approximately 15% of the parents responding to the survey had been told that their child has childhood verbal apraxia. Examination of the everyday speech characteristics identified by the parents indicated that many more children are showing clinical symptoms of childhood verbal apraxia although they have not been given that diagnosis. The most common characteristics displayed by the subjects included decreased intelligibility with increased length of utterance, inconsistency of speech errors, difficulty sequencing oral movements and sounds, and a pattern of receptive language superior to expressive language. The survey also examined the impact of childhood verbal apraxia on speech intelligibility. Results indicated that children with Down syndrome who have clinical symptoms of childhood verbal apraxia have more difficulty with speech intelligibility, i.e. there was a significant correlation between childhood verbal apraxia and parental intelligibility ratings. Children with apraxia often do not begin to speak until after age 5. There was a significant correlation between speech intelligibility and age at which the child began to speak, i.e. children who began to speak after age 5 had lower parental intelligibility ratings. A diagnosis of difficulty with oral motor skills is more frequently given than a diagnosis of apraxia; 60.2% of parents had been given this diagnosis. According to survey results, it is rare (2%) for a diagnosis of childhood verbal apraxia to be made without a diagnosis of difficulty with oral motor skills.
Data collected from 937 parent questionnaires regarding intelligibility of speech in children with Down syndrome were analyzed. Intelligibility was a wide-spread problem. Parents reported evidence of difficulties classified as oral motor skills, motor programming skills, and specific speech skills. Children experienced greater difficulty with sentences and in conversation than with single words. Intelligibility problems were more frequent when the child was conversing with unfamiliar adults. The implications of these findings for clinical assessment and remediation are discussed.
and ANT OZOK UMBCChildren with Down syndrome, like neurotypical children, are growing up with extensive exposure to computer technology. Computers and computer-related devices have the potential to help these children in education, career development, and independent living. Our understanding of computer usage by this population is quite limited. Most of the software, games, and Web sites that children with Down syndrome interact with are designed without consideration of their special needs, making the applications less effective or completely inaccessible. We conducted a largescale survey that collected computer usage information from the parents of approximately six hundred children with Down syndrome. This article reports the text responses collected in the survey and is intended as a step towards understanding the difficulties children with Down syndrome experience while using computers. The relationship between the age and the specific type of difficulties, as well as related design challenges are also reported. A number of potential research directions and hypotheses are identified for future studies. Due to limitations in survey methodology, the findings need to be further validated through hypothesis-driven, empirical studies.
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