The Relationship Between Event Representation and Linguistic Skill in Narratives of Children and Adolescents With Down Syndrome

Abstract

Children and adolescents with Down syndrome present with greater difficulty in expressive language than nonverbal cognitive domains. As narratives involve an understanding of the relationship(s) between events and their verbal expression, this divergence has implications for understanding narrative abilities in persons with Down syndrome. In this project, we investigated the relationship between event representation and linguistic expression in narratives of children and adolescents with Down syndrome ( n =31) and groups of typically developing children matched for mental age ( n =31), syntax comprehension ( n =28), or expressive language ( n =27). A short wordless film, the Pear Story (Chafe, 1980), was viewed individually by each participant and then each participant retold the story to an adult who (presumably) had not seen the film. Findings suggest a disparate relationship between linguistic expression and event representation in narratives of children and adolescents with Down syndrome. Participants with Down syndrome produced narratives that were significantly longer and more complex than the expressive-language-matched-group, with no differences observed in event structure when compared to the MA-matched group. Comparatively, use of linguistic devices and cohesion were poorer in the children and adolescents with Down syndrome than in the MA-matched children, with no differences observed in comparison to children matched for expressive language.