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Down syndrome and parental depression: A double hit on early expressive language development.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Lathan, Amanda 
Karmiloff-Smith, Annette 
Mareschal, Denis 

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Down syndrome (DS) is often characterised by intellectual disability with particular difficulties in expressive language. However, large individual differences exist in expressive language across development in DS. In the general population, one of the factors associated with variability in this domain is parental depression. We investigated whether this is also the case in young children with DS. METHODS: Thirty-eight children with DS between 8 and 48 months of age participated in this study. Their parents reported on the children's receptive and expressive vocabularies (MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory) and on parental depression. Furthermore, an experimenter-led standardized developmental assessment (Mullen Scales of Early Learning) was administered to the children to test five domains: gross motor, fine motor, visual reception, receptive language, and expressive language. RESULTS: A cross-sectional developmental trajectories analysis demonstrated that expressive language developed at a slower rate in children with DS whose parent reported depression than in those whose parent did not. No differences between groups were found in any other domain. CONCLUSION: Parental depression is associated with slower rate of expressive language development in young children with DS. These findings suggest that DS and parental depression may constitute a double hit leading to increased difficulties in the development of expressive language.

Description

Keywords

Cross-sectional developmental trajectories, Down syndrome, Expressive language, Language development, MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory, Mullen Scales of Early Learning, Parental depression, Adult, Child, Child of Impaired Parents, Child, Preschool, Cross-Sectional Studies, Depressive Disorder, Down Syndrome, Female, Humans, Infant, Language Development, Male, Middle Aged, Parents, Vocabulary

Journal Title

Res Dev Disabil

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0891-4222
1873-3379

Volume Title

100

Publisher

Elsevier BV
Sponsorship
The Wellcome Trust; The Waterloo Foundation; The Baily Thomas Charitable Fund; Newnham College, University of Cambridge; The Isaac Newton Trust