Narrative language competence in children and adolescents with Down syndrome

Abstract

This study was designed to examine the narrative language abilities of children and adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) in comparison to same-age peers with fragile X syndrome (FXS) and younger typically developing (TD) children matched by nonverbal cognitive ability levels. Participants produced narrative retells from a wordless picture book. Narratives were analyzed at the macrostructural (i.e., their internal episodic structure) and the microstructural (i.e., rate of use of specific word categories) levels. Mean length of utterance (MLU), a microstructural metric of syntactic complexity, was used as a control variable. Participants with DS produced fewer episodic elements in their narratives (i.e., their narratives were less fully realized) than the TD participants, although MLU differences accounted for the macrostructural differences between participant groups. At the microstructural level, participants with DS displayed a lower rate of verb use than the groups with FXS and typical development, even after accounting for MLU. These findings reflect both similarities and differences between individuals with DS or FXS and contribute to our understanding of the language phenotype of DS. Implications for interventions to promote language development and academic achievement are discussed.

Inferential language use by youth with Down syndrome during narration

“…Participants overlapped with those reported in previous papers (e.g., Channell et al 2015; Finestack et al, 2013; Kover, McDuffie, Abbeduto, & Brown, 2012; McDuffie et al, 2010); however, all analyses in the present study are unique and have not been previously reported.…”

“…This finding fits with that of overall inferential language and may mean that the underlying social-cognitive factors driving this impairment in DS are more specific to understanding others’ intentions or goals that motivate their actions (e.g., understanding intentionality, see Hahn et al, 2013). Linguistically, the communication of character actions requires the use of certain types of verbs, and there is some evidence that verb use is impaired in DS beyond level of MLU (Channell et al, 2015; Hesketh & Chapman, 1998). Thus, verb use may be yet another contributing factor and should also be considered in future research.…”

“…Narrative storytelling (i.e., the ability to coherently relay a sequence of events to a listener) is an important aspect of expressive language needed for everyday communication and is an area in which individuals with DS also struggle, although the extent of their challenges in narration is not clear (Boudreau & Chapman, 2000; Channell, McDuffie, Bullard, & Abbeduto, 2015; Finestack, Palmer, & Abbeduto, 2012; Hesketh & Chapman, 1998; Hogan-Brown, Losh, Martin, & Mueffelmann, 2013; Miles & Chapman, 2002). Narrative storytelling is a functional skill and a means for communicating personal experiences or fictional stories to others, often serving as a forum for reflecting on past events and discussing one’s own and others’ perspectives (Aldrich, Tenenbaum, Brooks, Harrison, & Sines, 2011; Bamberg & Marchman, 1990; Berman, 1995; Trabasso, Stein, Rodkin, Munger, & Baughn, 1992).…”

Adaptação cultural do Test of Narrative Language (TNL) para o Português Brasileiro

“…The test includes access to the information from the main typical elements of the Story Grammar (21) (e.g., characters, scenery, complication, outcome and ending of the story) and it also subsidizes other quantitative proposals, however informal, in order to investigate the oral narration (8,11,22,23) . The most general organization of the narrative at macrostructural level comes from more general cognitive skills, of an executive nature (24) , including information related to consistency and logical and causal relation between events and actions developed by the characters, which are contemplated at the TNL scoring system.…”

Review of Studies on Syntactic Development in Children and Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disorders:

“…In Japan, however, MLU has been inadequately standardized because there are different opinions about the division of grammatical morphemes (Otomo, 2010 (Miller, 1988). Channell, McDuffie, Bullard, et al (2015) reported that "people with DS were less likely to use adverbs and verbs in their stories than their cognitively matched TD peers," suggesting the possibility of a "specific weakness in phonological memory" and "a difficulty in abstract learning," which might affect the acquisition of verbs.…”