Maternal and paternal pragmatic speech directed to young children with Down syndrome and typical development
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
References (78)
- et al.
Relations among sustained engagement during play, quality of play, and mother-child interaction in samples of children with DS and normally developing toddlers
Infant Behaviour and Development
(1995) - et al.
The role of maternal affect attunement in dyadic and triadic communication
Infant Behavior and Development
(2007) The effect of context on mother's interaction style with Down's syndrome and typically developing children
Research in Developmental Disabilities
(2000)- et al.
Maternal language to prelinguistic infants: Semantic aspects
Infant Behavior and Development
(1978) - et al.
Parental-child interactions when young children have disabilities
International Review of Research in Mental Retardation
(2002) - et al.
Coordinating attention to people and objects in mother–infant and peer–infant interaction
Child Development
(1984) - Bayley, N. (1993). Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Second Edition: Manual. San Antonio, TX: The...
- et al.
An organizational approach to symbolic development in children with Down syndrome
NCMJ Directions in Child Development
(1987) Paternal speech and language acquisition: An anthropological perspective
Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology
(1990)Parenting infants