Inferential language use by youth with Down syndrome during narration.
Shealyn A Ashby, Marie Moore Channell, Leonard Abbeduto
PMID 29032290WHAT IT FOUND
Youth with Down syndrome used less inferential language in storytelling than peers with fragile X syndrome, even after accounting for sentence length.
The gap with typically developing children disappeared once sentence length was considered, suggesting structural language limits their narrative complexity.
Key findings
01Youth with Down syndrome produced proportionately less inferential language overall than both the fragile X syndrome group and the typically developing group.
02After controlling for mean length of utterance (MLU), the difference between Down syndrome and typically developing groups was no longer significant, but the difference between Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome groups remained.
03When MLU was accounted for, the group with fragile X syndrome outperformed the group with Down syndrome in references to character actions and attempts.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot determine causality or track development over time. Mean length of utterance was derived from the same narrative task as the inferential language measure, which may inflate the apparent relationship between the two. The sample size was relatively small, particularly for the fragile X syndrome group, which included only three females. Many participants scored at the floor level on the nonverbal cognitive measure, which may limit sensitivity to cognitive differences.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that youth with Down syndrome have a specific social-cognitive deficit in inference-making relative to typically developing peers. The study found that once sentence length (MLU) was accounted for, the difference between the Down syndrome and typically developing groups disappeared. The persistent deficit was only relative to the fragile X syndrome group.