Motor, linguistic, personal and social aspects of children with Down syndrome

Abstract

A global developmental delay is expected from Down syndrome, affecting motor, cognitive, linguistic and personal-social skills. However, not always these delays are proportional; different conditions occur due to several intrinsic and extrinsic variables that must be controlled to form groups of greater homogeneity. Objective To enhance personal-social, fine motor-adaptive, gross motor and linguistic skills among children with Down syndrome and compare them with typically developing children, matched for gender, socioeconomic status and mental age, while controlling some variables that interfere with the global development.Methods The ethical aspects were fulfilled (Case No. 040/2009). The following inclusion criteria were considered: participants without a history of prematurity, very low birth weight, congenital hypothyroidism, significant hearing and vision problems, and signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder. After the inclusion criteria were considered, 40 children participated in the study, of which 20 had Down syndrome (experimental group - EG), these being of both genders and with chronological ages ranging from 38 to 63 months, and the other 20 being typically developing children (control group - CG), matching the EG in terms of gender, socioeconomic status and mental age, with this age ranging from 13 to 50 months. The evaluation consisted in applying the Denver Developmental Screening Test II, a test that assesses areas such as personal-social, fine motor-adaptive, linguistic and gross motor development. The results were subjected to statistical analysis using Student’s t-test.Results A statistically significant difference was verified between the groups for the language and fine motor-adaptive areas.Conclusion Children with Down syndrome showed lower performance in language and fine motor skills when compared with typically developing children. There was no statistically significant difference in gross motor and personal-social areas. It is worth mentioning the importance of controlling the variables to deal with more homogeneous groups.

Fine Motor Activities Program to Promote Fine Motor Skills in a Case Study of Down’s Syndrome

“…Additionally, a research on "motor, linguistic, personal and social aspects of children with Down's syndrome" found that a statistically significant difference was verified between groups for language and fine-motor adaptive areas. That is to say, children with Down's syndrome show lower performance in language and fine motor skills when compared to typical developing children, but there was no statistically significant difference in gross motor or personal-social areas (Ferreira-Vasques & Lamonica, 2015). The results of these researches pointed to the problems of fine motor skills in children with Down's syndrome.…”

Influência do ambiente domiciliar no desenvolvimento motor de lactentes com síndrome de Down

“…The motor development of infants with DS is expected to be impaired 2,3 . However, when considering that the motor development is influenced by the home environment, our results showed that home affordances have a positive relationship with the motor performance of infants between 12 and 18 months.…”

“…Campos et al 20 compared infants with DS to typical infants and found that infants with DS performed fewer interaction activities with the environment. This can be explained by limitations in motor skills, such as deficits in postural and antigravity control 2,3 . Therefore, we can consider that in addition to precarious home affordances, DS limitations interfere in motor performance 20 .…”

“…Down syndrome (DS) is the most common chromosomal abnormality in the population and is characterized by intellectual and motor deficits 1,2 . Impaired neuro-psychomotor development of children with DS is related to low muscle tone and difficulties in postural control and balance [3][4][5] .…”

The biology, pathogenesis and clinical aspects of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children with Down syndrome

“…DS is caused by trisomy for chromosome 21 (Hsa21) and is associated with several well established morbidities including cardiac defects, growth anomalies, endocrinopathies, ophthalmologic disorders and learning disabilities (1-5). Despite the fact that children with DS have a higher risk for malignant neoplasms (6), the incidence of solid tumors in people with DS is actually lower than in the population without DS, including all age groups (7, 8).…”