Language and executive functioning in young adults with Down syndrome.
K Kristensen, K M Lorenz, X Zhou and 6 others
PMID 34288180WHAT IT FOUND
In young adults with Down syndrome, receptive vocabulary was stronger than expressive vocabulary and overall nonverbal cognitive ability.
Receptive vocabulary and verbal fluency showed strong associations with executive functioning skills like inhibition and attention, suggesting these cognitive areas are linked to language performance.
Key findings
01Participants demonstrated larger delays in expressive vocabulary relative to receptive vocabulary, with expressive language appearing as a relative weakness.
02Receptive vocabulary showed significant positive correlations with measures of inhibition, attention, and both verbal and nonverbal working memory.
03Verbal fluency was associated with inhibition and verbal working memory, but only attention was associated with expressive vocabulary.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small (n=19) and lacked a control group, relying instead on normative data. Findings may not generalize to individuals with Down syndrome who do not use multi-word spoken phrases. Floor effects were observed on several cognitive and language measures, limiting the range of scores. The cross-sectional design prevents conclusions about causality or the direction of the relationship between executive functioning and language.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (Extramural). No other specific conflicts of interest were declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the correlations between executive functioning and language as evidence that treating executive functioning deficits will directly improve language skills. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot determine whether one causes the other or if they share a common underlying factor.