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Written and Oral Narratives of Children and Adolescents With Down Syndrome

Contact author: Elizabeth Kay-Raining Bird, School of Human Communication Disorders, Dalhousie University, 5599 Fenwick Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 1R2, Canada. E-mail: rainbird{at}dal.ca.

Purpose: This study describes written and spoken narrative skills of school-age individuals with Down syndrome (DS).

Method: Twenty-one students with DS (age 6;6 [years;months]–19;10) and 17 reading-matched, typically developing (TD) controls (age 4;9–10;9) were matched using Word Identification subtest raw scores (Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests—Revised; R. W. Woodcock, 1987; age equivalents: 5;0–9;7 for both groups). Matching on reading resulted in significantly higher mental ages and vocabulary comprehension age-equivalent scores for the controls. Narratives were elicited in 3 modes (oral, handwritten, and word-processed) using single-episode picture sequences. Narratives were analyzed for length, linguistic complexity, narrative structure, spelling, punctuation, and handwriting legibility.

Results: Analyses revealed significant group differences only for measures of narrative length (DS > TD) and handwriting legibility (TD > DS). Oral narratives were longer and more complex than written narratives for both groups. Regression analyses revealed that vocabulary comprehension was the best predictor of narrative skills for the group with DS; age was the best predictor of narrative skills for the TD group.

Conclusions: These school-age students with DS exhibited many oral and written narrative abilities that were comparable with those of real-word-reading-matched controls. Several findings suggest a possible increased constraint of fine-motor skill in the DS group.

KEY WORDS: Down syndrome, narratives, language development, literacy, writing, spelling