Children and adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) are reported, variously, to have language skills above (vocabulary comprehension) and below (expressive syntax) their nonverbal mental age; cross-sectional evidence suggests that the deficits increase with age. The goals of the present work are to determine, through longitudinal study, whether the gaps between the cognitive level of children with DS and their expressive and receptive language levels widen with age and to identify acquisition processes associated with variation in language skill with DS children. This competing continuation proposal extends the period of longitudinal study of 5 DS children and adolescents aged 5 to 21 years from two to six years and the number of DS observation points from two to four. It permits a definitive longitudinal test of the cumulative deficit hypothesis and, in doing so, permits an empirical test for an elaborated theory of language production development (Child Talk) that would not be possible in normally developing children, whose cognitive and language skills do not ordinarily diverge widely. Computer analyses of the free speech transcripts will permit a detailed longitudinal description of changes in the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of spoken language in children with DS over the six year period. Hierarchical linear modeling will be used to evaluate between-s predictors of rates of growth in the language variables. In addition, new studies of DS children's ability to narrate and recall novel events, to """"""""fast map"""""""" novel word meaning from event and story contexts, and to benefit from prior discourse use of words and sentence structure in utterance formulation will be conducted, elaborating the experimental investigations of narration, vocabulary acquisition, and prior discourse priming on the basis of outcomes in the current grant period. Experimental tasks evaluating comprehension strategies will be added. Performance on all tasks will be compared to three groups of normally developing children statistically matched for 1) nonverbal mental age and SES; 2) language comprehension and SES; and.3) language production and SES. Within the DS group, experimental task performance will be analyzed for variation as a function of cognitive, comprehension, and production skills in a test of the Child Talk model.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD023353-13
Application #
6627347
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZHD1-MRG-C (07))
Program Officer
Kau, Alice S
Project Start
1987-07-01
Project End
2004-12-31
Budget Start
2003-01-01
Budget End
2004-12-31
Support Year
13
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$262,675
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Wisconsin Madison
Department
Pediatrics
Type
Other Domestic Higher Education
DUNS #
161202122
City
Madison
State
WI
Country
United States
Zip Code
53715
Miles, Sally; Chapman, Robin; Sindberg, Heidi (2006) Sampling context affects MLU in the language of adolescents with Down syndrome. J Speech Lang Hear Res 49:325-37
Chapman, Robin S (2006) Language learning in Down syndrome: the speech and language profile compared to adolescents with cognitive impairment of unknown origin. Downs Syndr Res Pract 10:61-6
Chapman, Robin S; Sindberg, Heidi; Bridge, Cynthia et al. (2006) Effect of memory support and elicited production on fast mapping of new words by adolescents with Down syndrome. J Speech Lang Hear Res 49:3-15
Miolo, Giuliana; Chapman, Robin S; Sindberg, Heidi A (2005) Sentence comprehension in adolescents with Down syndrome and typically developing children: role of sentence voice, visual context, and auditory-verbal short-term memory. J Speech Lang Hear Res 48:172-88
Johnson-Glenberg, M C; Chapman, R S (2004) Predictors of parent-child language during novel task play: a comparison between typically developing children and individuals with Down syndrome. J Intellect Disabil Res 48:225-38
Seung, H-K; Chapman, R (2004) Sentence memory of individuals with Down's syndrome and typically developing children. J Intellect Disabil Res 48:160-71
Bird, Elizabeth Kay-Raining; Chapman, Robin S; Schwartz, Scott E (2004) Fast mapping of words and story recall by individuals with Down syndrome. J Speech Lang Hear Res 47:1286-300
Chapman, Robin S; Hesketh, Linda J; Kistler, Doris J (2002) Predicting longitudinal change in language production and comprehension in individuals with Down syndrome: hierarchical linear modeling. J Speech Lang Hear Res 45:902-15
Miles, Sally; Chapman, Robin S (2002) Narrative content as described by individuals with Down syndrome and typically developing children. J Speech Lang Hear Res 45:175-89
Chapman, R S; Hesketh, L J (2000) Behavioral phenotype of individuals with Down syndrome. Ment Retard Dev Disabil Res Rev 6:84-95

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