This study investigated how forty-six mothers modified their talk about familiar and unfamiliar nouns and verbs when interacting with their children with Down Syndrome (DS), language impairment (LI), or typical development (TD). Children (MLUs < 2·7) were group-matched on expressive vocabulary size. Mother-child dyads were recorded playing with…

The present study examined narrative development in children and adolescents with Down syndrome longitudinally. Narratives were collected from 32 children and adolescents with Down syndrome three times over a 1-year period. Both micro- and macrolevel analyses were conducted. Significant growth over the 1-year period was seen in semantic complexity…

Predictors of language production skills were evaluated in 48 children and adolescents with Down syndrome and compared to 48 children matched for nonverbal mental age and mother's years of education. Comparison of two models found the model that incorporated comprehension performance (as well group membership, chronological age, cognition,…

Conversational and narrative language samples from 47 subjects with Down syndrome (ages 5 to 20) were compared with those from 47 control subjects matched for nonverbal mental age. Down syndrome children differed from controls in number of different words, in total words, in mean length of utterance, and in total utterance attempts per minute.…