Everyday Memory in People with Down Syndrome

Although memory functions in people with Down Syndrome (DS) have been studied extensively, how well people with DS remember things about everyday life is not well understood. In the current study, 31 adolescents/young adults with DS and 26 with intellectual disabilities (ID) of mixed etiology (not DS) participated. They completed an everyday memory questionnaire about personal facts and recent events (e.g., school name, breakfast). They also completed a standard laboratory task of verbal long-term memory (LTM) where they recalled a list of unrelated words over trials. Results did not indicate impaired everyday memory, but impaired verbal LTM, in people with DS relative to people with mixed ID. Furthermore, the laboratory verbal LTM task predicted everyday memory for both groups after taking into account mental age equivalent. Our research showed both an independence and a connection between everyday memory and the standard laboratory memory task and has important research and clinical implications.