The development of adaptive skills in young people with Down syndrome

To help children with Down syndrome reach optimum levels of adaptive behaviour, caretakers need to know how and to what extent children with Down syndrome acquire adaptive skills.

The adaptive levels of motor, daily living, communicative and social behavioural skills were determined in a group of 984 Dutch children with Down syndrome, aged between 0 and 12 years, and compared with the adaptive levels of typically developing children using a Dutch version of the Vineland Screener.

Children with Down syndrome acquire their adaptive skills at a slower pace and reach their ceiling scores at about the age of 12 years, at a substantially lower level than a reference group of typically developing children.

Down children seem to acquire skills in a similar sequence and according to a similar trajectory. Development of adaptive skills varies greatly between participants with Down syndrome. For that reason, cohort studies on the development of individuals with Down syndrome over a prolonged period of time are needed.