Narrative content as described by individuals with Down syndrome and typically developing children

Narratives of the wordless picture story, Frog, Where Are You?, by 33 individuals with Down syndrome and typically developing children (33 matched for mental age, 33 for syntax comprehension, 33 for mean length of utterance) were analyzed for expression of plot line, story theme, and the protagonists' misadventures in the story. Despite their restricted expressive syntax and vocabulary, the group with Down syndrome expressed more plot line and thematic content and more of one of the protagonists' misadventures than the MLU controls; they most resembled the syntax comprehension control participants. We conclude that the group with Down syndrome had a conceptual understanding of the picture story similar to that of the TACL-R group and a strategy for expressing that understanding despite expressive lexical and syntactic limitations; this resulted in the expression of more narrative content than formal measures of expressive language would predict. We propose that the higher syntactic comprehension skills of the group with Down syndrome, combined with their experience with story content (listening to stories), may have contributed to their developing higher-level story schemas than would be expected given their MLUs.