Maternal and paternal pragmatic speech directed to young children with Down syndrome and typical development

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare functional features of maternal and paternal speech directed to children with Down syndrome and developmental age-matched typically developing children. Altogether 88 parents (44 mothers and 44 fathers) and their 44 young children (22 children with Down syndrome and 22 typically developing children) participated. Parents’ speech directed to children was obtained through observation of naturalistic parent–child dyadic interactions. Verbatim transcripts of maternal and paternal language were categorized in terms of the primary function of each speech unit. Parents (both mothers and fathers) of children with Down syndrome used more affect-salient speech compared to parents of typically developing children. Although parents used the same amounts of information-salient speech, parents of children with Down syndrome used more direct statements and asked fewer questions than did parents of typically developing children. Concerning parent gender, in both groups mothers used more language than fathers and specifically more descriptions. These findings held controlling for child age and MLU and family SES. This study highlights strengths and weaknesses of parental communication to children with Down syndrome and helps to identify areas of potential improvement through intervention.

Research highlights

▶ Parents of children with DS use more affect-salient speech than parents of TD children. ▶ Parents of children with DS use more direct statements and fewer questions than parents of TD children. ▶ In both groups mothers used more language than fathers and specifically more descriptions.

Section snippets

Participants

Altogether 88 parents (44 mothers and 44 fathers) and their 44 children (22 boys and 22 girls) participated. Forty-four (22 mothers and 22 fathers) were biological parents of 22 children with Down syndrome (chronological age: M = 40.27 months; SD = 7.28; range = 26–48; developmental age: M = 22.14 months; SD = 3.55; range = 15–26) and 44 (22 mothers and 22 fathers) were biological parents of 22 typically developing children (chronological age: M = 24.09 months; SD = 4.14; range = 19–31). Parents of children with

Preliminary analyses

Preliminary correlations between demographic variables and parental speech measures were conducted to investigate possible covariates. Child developmental age was positively associated with environment-referent and negatively correlated with the total number of parental speech units, the affect-salient category, and subcategories of direct statements and child's action-referent. Family SES correlated significantly with affect-salient speech and questions. Thus, child developmental age and SES

Discussion

The aim of this study was to compare functional features of maternal and paternal speech directed to children with Down syndrome and developmental age-matched typically developing children. To reach our aim we analyzed the functional features of parental language during naturalistic parent-child dyadic interaction. In general, results highlighted both similarities and differences between parents of children with Down syndrome and typical development as well as between mothers and fathers. In

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