Narrative development in adolescents and young adults with fragile x syndrome

The narratives of 18 adolescents and young adults with fragile X syndrome were compared to those of 23 adolescents with Down syndrome and 21 typically developing children matched for nonverbal MA. Narratives were elicited using a wordless picture book and analyzed for use of narrative evaluation, linguistic productivity, and complexity. Results revealed that the individuals with fragile X syndrome produced significantly fewer different types of narrative evaluation, but more grammatically acceptable utterances than did the youth with Down syndrome. There was no significant difference between the participants with fragile X syndrome and their typically developing nonverbal-MA matches. Results suggest that a variety of language measures and contexts are needed to gain a full understanding of the language abilities of individuals with fragile X syndrome.