Can individuals with Down syndrome acquire alphabetic literacy skills in the absence of phoneme awareness (original) (raw)
Related papers
Early Phonological Awareness and Reading Skills In Children With Down Syndrome
Down Syndrome Research and Practice, 2003
Increasingly, children with Down syndrome receive literacy instruction with the expectation of acquiring functional reading skills. Unfortunately, little is known about the processes underlying literacy skills in this special population. Phonological awareness contributes to literacy development in typically developing children, however, there is inconclusive evidence about these skills in younger children with Down syndrome. 9 children with Down syndrome (5;6 -8;10 years) participated in this investigation. Due to the paucity of standardised phonological awareness measures for children with special needs, in particular children with Down syndrome, a variety of tasks were adapted from the literature. The assessment battery examined the skills of phonological awareness, literacy, speech production, expressive language, hearing acuity, speech perception, and auditory-visual memory. The results suggest that children with Down syndrome are at risk for reading acquisition difficulties due to reduced phonological awareness skills. These deficits are in addition to delays caused by reduced cognitive skills. Only one of the participants was able to demonstrate rhyme awareness, which may have been due to task effects. Written word recognition ability was correlated with tests of phonemic awareness, and error analysis of the spelling and non-word reading tasks suggested grapheme-phoneme connections deficits. Further research is needed to determine the best methods of assessment and intervention for phonological awareness in children with Down syndrome.
Phonological awareness in children with Down syndrome
Down Syndrome Research and Practice, 2002
Research in the area of phonological awareness has mainly focused on the nature of the relationship between reading ability and awareness of phonemes. However, a recent study of phonological awareness in children with Down syndrome questioned the existence of any necessary relationship . This paper describes a study of phonological awareness in children with Down syndrome with varying levels of reading ability. The sample consisted of 10 male and 7 female children with Down syndrome (aged 9 years 2 months to 14 years 5 months). All children received a battery of tests which consisted of assessments of: 1) phonological awareness, 2) reading and spelling competence, 3) non-word reading and spelling ability, and 4) non-verbal measures. Children with Down syndrome demonstrated measurable levels of phonological awareness. Signifi cant positive correlations were found between phonological awareness and: reading and spelling competence, ability to spell non-words and non-verbal measures.
Development of phonological awareness in Down syndrome: A meta-analysis and empirical study
Developmental Psychology, 2016
Phonological awareness (PA) is the knowledge and understanding of the sound structure of language and is believed to be an important skill for the development of reading. This study explored PA skills in children with Down syndrome and matched typically developing (TD) controls using a dual approach: a meta-analysis of the existing international literature and a longitudinal empirical study. The results from both the meta-analysis and the empirical study showed that the children with Down syndrome initially had weaker PA skills compared to the controls; in particular, the awareness of rhyme was delayed. The longitudinal empirical data indicated that, as a result of formal education, the children with Down syndrome exhibited greater improvement on all PA measures compared with the controls who had not yet entered school. The results reach significance for rhyme awareness. With respect to dimensionality, the performance of the children with Down syndrome loaded on 1 factor, whereas the performance of the younger TD controls was multidimensional. In sum, these findings underline the need for studies that compare interventions designed especially to stimulate development of PA in this group of children and to provide insight into the underlying causes of the developmental profile of children with Down syndrome.
Study of a set of reading precursors among Chilean children with Down syndrome
Frontiers in Psychology
Learning to read for children with Down syndrome is relevant because of the impact this ability has on learning and the development of autonomy. Previous research has described reading development in this population, but it is not clear if the process and precursors are the same in a transparent language like Spanish. This study explores performance in a set of precursors (phonological awareness, visual recognition, vocabulary, letter knowledge and verbal reasoning) in 42 children with Down syndrome between 6:0 and 10:11 years. We hypothesized that the participants would have a lower performance than previously reported with children with typical development, particularly in tasks of phonological awareness, because the method for reading instruction in Chile with this population is usually the global method. Our results show that the precursors improve with age, that there are differences in performance between the skills assessed, and the ceiling effect was not observed as would be...
International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 2020
This study aims to describe the phonological awareness, reading comprehension, fluent reading levels and types of errors in the reading of individuals with DS who can read and to examine the relationship between these variables. This relational descriptive study consists of 44 individuals with DS aged between 7 and 30 years who can read. 'Early Childhood Phonological Sensitivity Scale (ECPSS)' and the 'Skill of Oral Reading and Reading Comprehension Test (SOBAT-II)' were used for data collection. It was observed that the level of phonological awareness of individuals with DS was moderate, their level of fluent reading and reading comprehension was insufficient, and that the type of reading mistake they did most frequently was letter skipping (80%). It was determined that according to their level of (mild or moderate) intellectual disability, there was a significant difference between phonological awareness, fluent reading, and reading comprehension levels, also, it was found out that there was a statistically significant correlation between these variables.
Training phonological awareness skills in children with Down syndrome
Research in developmental disabilities, 2003
Increasingly, children with Down syndrome receive literacy instruction based on a phonological awareness philosophy with the expectation of acquiring functional reading skills. Previous research demonstrates that a phonological awareness based reading programme delivers excellent results in terms of literacy acquisition and improvements in speech production for children with speech and language delays. Unfortunately, little research exists to support the effectiveness of this approach for children with Down syndrome. The current research study examined using a phonological awareness based intervention programme with three children with Down syndrome (aged 7;2, 8;4, and 8;10). A multiple baseline across behaviours design was selected. The intervention programme focused on the key skills of alliteration detection, phoneme isolation, spelling of orthographically regular words and rhyme detection. Two tasks (comprehension of passive structures and spatial structures) were selected as control behaviours. Phoneme segmentation and speech intelligibility were selected to investigate generalisation of intervention targets to other related skill areas. The results indicated that the participants improved the phonological awareness skills targeted in the intervention programme. Unfortunately, no generalisation to other areas of phonological awareness was noted. In summary, the results indicate that children with Down syndrome can bene®t from a phonological awareness based approach to literacy. #
Review of Psychopedagogy, 2023
This scientific investigation delves into the pivotal role of phonemes in language acquisition among children aged 8 to 11 with Down syndrome and intellectual disabilities. The study uncovers significant disparities between these groups, emphasizing the need for tailored educational strategies. Findings reveal fluctuations in rhyme, syllable, and phoneme recognition, underscoring the complexity of linguistic development. Noteworthy is the positive correlation between higher intelligence and enhanced phonological performance in both groups. The study suggests the importance of early interventions for children with Down syndrome and advocates for personalized educational programs.
2017
The association between Phonological Awareness (PA) and reading in Down Syndrome (DS) has been questioned throughout the years. Studies have shown that PA does develop. However, several impairments have been identified. Conversely, Visual Perceptual Processing Skills (VPPS) in children with DS has been recognised as being a strength. Children with DS have been described as being visual learners and in consequence children with DS have been exposed primarily to visual methods of reading instruction. This study investigates the development of PA and VPPS in ten Maltese-speaking students with DS, with the aim of identifying the development of these skills in the Maltese language. Ten students with DS were compared to reading age matched typically developing (TD) students. Results showed that there was no overall significant difference between the results of TD students and students with DS in PA. In contrast, the group of students with DS obtained very low scores in VPPS tasks. The results suggest that the visual method of reading instruction should not be used as the only method of reading training with students with DS. Students with DS should be exposed to both a phonological method and a visual method of tuition to develop their reading abilities.
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra
Many of speech therapists have given therapy to the children with Down Syndrome (DS) without thinking whether the children belong to mild mental retardation (IQ 50-69) or moderate mental retardation DS children (IQ 35-49). Therefore, a study was conducted to see the differences and the findings showed that the moderate mental retardation DS child dominated the three types of phonological disorders, i.e. phoneme substitution, simplification, and addition. In this research, the last type of phonological disorder was not found for both DS children. In addition, the mild mental retardation DS child responded the stimulus, yet the moderate mental retardation DS child could not answer about 1/5 stimulus given. It was also found that the moderate mental retardation DS child was so sensitive with touching. So, the therapy for the DS should not be the same. For the mild mental retardation DS children (IQ 5-069), the stimulus given to them could be by using flash cards, but for the moderate mental retardation down syndrome children (IQ 35-49), the stimulus should be something real, concrete, or something that could be touched so that they can respond the stimulus well and their language can be better in the future.
Neuropsychological correlates of word identification in Down syndrome
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2005
In order to better understand the neuropsychological underpinnings of the relative strength in word identification in individuals with Down syndrome, the performance of children and adolescents with Down syndrome (N = 29) was compared to the performance of a nonverbal-IQ matched group of children and adolescents with developmental disabilities of mixed etiologies (N = 20) on measures letter/word identification and cognitive-linguistic functioning. Though no between-group differences were observed for letter/word identification or visual processing performance, individuals with Down syndrome showed significantly poorer verbal short-term memory and receptive vocabulary skills. In terms of neuropsychological correlates of letter/word identification, significant linear associations were observed between letter/word identification (K-ABC reading/decoding) and verbal short-term memory (K-ABC number recall), as well as receptive vocabulary (PPVT-III) and visual processing (MVPT-R) in both groups. However, when only children with word identification competence (as opposed to letter identification competence) were included in analyses, visual perception scores (total MVPT-R) were significantly associated with word identification in the Down syndrome group, but not in the mixed comparison group. Implications for etiology-specific instructional approaches are discussed. #