Daily Living Skills in Adolescent and Young Adult Males With Fragile X Syndrome.
Angela John Thurman, Stephanie Summers Swinehart, Jessica Klusek and 5 others
PMID 34979036WHAT IT FOUND
Males with fragile X syndrome aged 15 to 23 often did personal self-care independently but needed more help with chores, cooking, errands, and finances.
Stronger nonverbal thinking and understanding sentences were linked to greater independence; anxiety was not.
Key findings
01Most participants were reported to perform personal daily living skills independently, while domestic tasks such as cooking and laundry usually required help.
02Community skills were especially limited: only one participant was reported to run errands independently, and managing finances was the skill most often not performed at all.
03Nonverbal cognition, receptive syntax, expressive syntax, and ASD symptom severity were associated with daily living skills; anxiety was not.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 57 males were studied, and all had some phrase speech and could travel to testing sites, so results may not apply to males with FXS who are nonverbal or have greater support needs. This was a cross-sectional report, not a trial; associations do not show that improving cognition, syntax, or ASD symptoms will improve daily living skills. Daily living skills were rated only by mothers, with no self-report or objective task performance. Females were excluded. The model accounted for about half the variance, so other factors were not measured. Age comparisons were exploratory and based on two groups, not a longitudinal follow-up. Some participants had missing cognitive, language, or ADOS data due to examiner or administration error.
Declared interests
The article is listed as Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural. The supplied text does not include an author conflict-of-interest declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that improving syntax or nonverbal cognition will improve daily living skills. This was a cross-sectional caregiver-report study, so it shows association, not cause.