Signaling of Noncomprehension by Children and Adolescents With Mental Retardation

Abbeduto, Leonard; Short‐Meyerson, Katherine; Benson, Glenis; Dolish, Joanna

doi:10.1044/jslhr.4001.20

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Individuals with DS, from childhood through adulthood, have poor monitoring of their verbal comprehension or are unable to execute and create a plan to request clarification of instructions [Abbeduto et al, , ]. Children, adolescents, and adults with DS often fail to signal that they do not understand [Abbeduto et al, , , ] and when compared with TD‐MA matched controls, adolescents, and young adults with DS show lower frequency of signaling [Abbeduto et al, ]. Self‐monitoring in adults remains vulnerable, as poor monitoring for intrusion errors and difficulty preventing irrelevant information from interfering with cognitive processing of relevant information has been demonstrated [Kittler et al, ].…”

Section: Cognitive Functioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Down syndrome: Cognitive and behavioral functioning across the lifespan

Grieco¹,

Pulsifer²,

Seligsohn³

et al. 2015

American J of Med Genetics Pt C

322

246

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Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) commonly possess unique neurocognitive and neurobehavioral profiles that emerge within specific developmental periods. These profiles are distinct relative to others with similar intellectual disability (ID) and reflect underlying neuroanatomic findings, providing support for a distinctive phenotypic profile. This review updates what is known about the cognitive and behavioral phenotypes associated with DS across the lifespan. In early childhood, mild deviations from neurotypically developing trajectories emerge. By school-age, delays become pronounced. Nonverbal skills remain on trajectory for mental age, whereas verbal deficits emerge and persist. Nonverbal learning and memory are strengths relative to verbal skills. Expressive language is delayed relative to comprehension. Aspects of language skills continue to develop throughout adolescence, although language skills remain compromised in adulthood. Deficits in attention/executive functions are present in childhood and become more pronounced with age. Characteristic features associated with DS (cheerful, social nature) are personality assets. Children are at a lower risk for psychopathology compared to other children with ID; families report lower levels of stress and a more positive outlook. In youth, externalizing behaviors may be problematic, whereas a shift toward internalizing behaviors emerges with maturity. Changes in emotional/behavioral functioning in adulthood are typically associated with neurodegeneration and individuals with DS are higher risk for dementia of the Alzheimer's type. Individuals with DS possess many unique strengths and weaknesses that should be appreciated as they develop across the lifespan. Awareness of this profile by professionals and caregivers can promote early detection and support cognitive and behavioral development.

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Section: Cognitive Functioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Down syndrome: Cognitive and behavioral functioning across the lifespan

Grieco¹,

Pulsifer²,

Seligsohn³

et al. 2015

American J of Med Genetics Pt C

322

246

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Abbeduto, Short-Meyerson, Benson, and Dolish (1997) examined the roles of message type and speaker age on non-comprehension signaling by individuals with ID (CA: M = 15;7, range: 9;0 to 20;1) and TD children (CA: M = 6;1, range: 5;0 to 9;8) matched on nonverbal MA. In this study, the speaker, who was in a different room (and therefore invisible to the listener) gave the listener directions for how to move a small toy car along a simple road map.…”

Section: Referential Communication In Intellectual Disability Syndromes: the Listener’s Rolementioning

confidence: 99%

Referential Communication Skills of Children With Williams Syndrome: Understanding When Messages Are Not Adequate

John

Rowe

Mervis

2009

American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

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Although children with Williams syndrome (WS) have relatively good structural language and concrete vocabulary abilities, they have difficulty with pragmatic aspects of language. To investigate the impact of pragmatic difficulties on listener-role referential communication, we administered a picture placement task designed to measure ability to verbalize message inadequacy to a speaker separated by a barrier. 57 children with WS aged 6 -12 years participated. When messages were inadequate, children verbalized that a problem was encountered less than half the time. The likelihoods that children would indicate a message was insufficient and that children who verbalized message inadequacy also would effectively communicate the problem varied as a function of type of problem encountered, theory of mind knowledge, receptive vocabulary, and CA. KeywordsWilliams-Beuren syndrome; referential communication; conversational inadequacy; social communication; pragmatics; intellectual disability Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder resulting from a hemideletion of 25 genes on chromosome 7q11.23 (Ewart et al., 1993;Morris, 2006), with a prevalence of 1 in 7500 live births (Strømme, Bjørnstad, & Ramstad, 2002); boys and girls are equally likely to be affected (American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Genetics, 2001). WS is characterized by mild to moderate intellectual disability or learning difficulties, dysmorphic facial features, and heart disease, especially supravalvar aortic stenosis (Morris, 2006). WS has drawn considerable attention from researchers due to its unusual cognitive and personality profiles. The WS cognitive profile is characterized by relative strengths in verbal short term memory and the structural and concrete vocabulary components of language accompanied by severe weakness in visuospatial construction (Mervis et al., 2000;Mervis & Morris, 2007;Udwin & Yule, 1991).The WS personality profile involves high levels of sociability and empathy, over-eagerness to interact with others, and high levels of tension and sensitivity (Klein-Tasman & Mervis, 2003). Children with WS have been described as very sociable (Dilts et al., 1990), outgoing and talkative (Jones & Smith, 1975), approachable (Tomc et al., 1990), charming (Fryns et al., 1991), and unusually friendly (Preus, 1984). Despite these seemingly positive characteristics, individuals with WS demonstrate difficulty with peer relationships (e.g., Sullivan et al., 2003) with one study (Davies et al., 1998) reporting that 96% of parents and caregivers of adults with WS described problems with establishing friendships. Address Correspondence to: Angela E. John, Dept of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292. . Email: E-mail: aejohn11@gwise.louisville.edu. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptAm J Intellect Dev Disabil. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 March 1. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptThe combination of a relative strength in the structural and concrete vocabulary aspects of language a...

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“…The primary examiner also explained that the participant could "talk with [speaker's name], ask him/her questions, or say anything to him/her to make sure your pictures match" to assure the participant that there were no prohibitions against talking, thereby ensuring the validity of this task (Abbeduto, Short-Meyerson, Benson, & Dolish, 1997).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noncomprehension Signaling in Males and Females With Fragile X Syndrome

Thurman

Kover

Brown

et al. 2017

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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a,bPurpose: This study used a prospective longitudinal design to evaluate the trajectory and predictors of noncomprehension signaling in male and female youth with fragile X syndrome (FXS). Method: A direction-following task in which some of the directions were inadequate was administered. Participants were 52 youth (36 boys, 16 girls) with FXS. Upon study entry, participants ranged from 10 to 16 years. The average number of annual assessments per participant was 3.65 (range = 1-4), providing 198 data points for analysis. Results: Participants with FXS were less likely to signal noncomprehension than younger, typically developing, cognitively matched children. The average rate of change in noncomprehension signaling was not significantly different from 0 for either boys or girls, suggesting a plateau. Both FMRP and nonverbal IQ were significant independent predictors of noncomprehension signaling for boys. Variability in noncomprehension signaling among girls was not explained by any of the predictors, but trends similar to those observed for boys were observed. Conclusions: Noncomprehension signaling appears to be an area of weakness for individuals with FXS. Because the failure to signal noncomprehension can have negative, cumulative effects on comprehension, the results suggest a need for interventions targeting the requisite cognitive skills.

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Signaling of Noncomprehension by Children and Adolescents With Mental Retardation

Cited by 26 publications

References 20 publications

Down syndrome: Cognitive and behavioral functioning across the lifespan

Down syndrome: Cognitive and behavioral functioning across the lifespan

Referential Communication Skills of Children With Williams Syndrome: Understanding When Messages Are Not Adequate

Noncomprehension Signaling in Males and Females With Fragile X Syndrome

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