Speech-language therapy stimulation in children with Down’s syndrome

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective: to analyze the contributions of speech-language therapy to the language development of children with Down syndrome (DS). Methods: eleven children with DS participated in the research. The children were between zero and five years of age, of both genders and attending a university extension project involving eight therapy sessions following stimulation guidelines. Children were evaluated before and after speech-language stimulation. The stimulation guidelines were based on the following aspects of language development: coordination of sensorimotor schema, constitution of object permanence, gestural/body imitation, imitation of utterances, deferred imitation and use of symbolic schema, communicative intent, receptive vocabulary and expressive vocabulary: words and phrases. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution. Data were analyzed quantitatively. Results: there were significant differences in the pre- and post-speech-language intervention in the following skills parameters: gestural/body imitation, imitation of utterances, deferred imitation and use of symbolic schema, communicative intent and receptive vocabulary. Conclusion: early stimulation of linguistic and cognitive aspects is important in the development of children with DS, as evidenced by the immediate development of speech-language skills in children after the intervention.