Reading comprehension in children with Down syndrome.
Glynis Laws1, Heather Brown1, Elizabeth Main1
1School of Experimental Psychology, 12a Priory Road, Bristol, BS8 1TU UK.
Reading and Writing
|January 23, 2016
Summary
Children with Down syndrome (DS) show weaker reading comprehension than peers. Their reading skills are linked to listening, phonology, and vocabulary, but they don't improve with written text over spoken words.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Special Education
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Reading comprehension is a complex skill crucial for academic success.
- Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) often face challenges in language and cognitive development, impacting reading abilities.
- Understanding the specific difficulties and contributing factors in reading comprehension for this population is essential.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare reading comprehension in children with DS to typically developing (TD) children matched on word reading.
- To examine the relationship between reading comprehension and other linguistic/cognitive skills in children with DS.
- To investigate the longitudinal development of reading and language skills in children with DS.
Main Methods:
- Two studies were conducted involving 14 readers with Down syndrome (DS) and typically developing (TD) children.
- Participants were assessed on reading comprehension, listening comprehension, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and nonverbal cognitive abilities.
- Study 2 employed a longitudinal design, tracking changes over approximately 22 months.
Main Results:
- Children with DS demonstrated significantly poorer passage-reading comprehension compared to TD peers.
- Readers with DS understood fewer written sentences than TD children and showed no benefit from written over spoken sentences.
- Reading comprehension in DS was associated with listening comprehension, word reading, and phonological awareness. Vocabulary was linked via word reading and nonverbal cognition.
- Longitudinal data indicated that listening comprehension and phonological awareness predicted later reading comprehension, but not vice versa.
Conclusions:
- Children with DS have specific deficits in reading comprehension, not fully explained by word reading ability.
- Reading comprehension in DS is influenced by underlying language and phonological skills.
- While early language skills predict reading gains, reading itself does not appear to enhance language development in this group over time.
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