Spoken and gestural production in a naming task by young children with Down syndrome.
Lexical production in children with Down syndrome (DS) was investigated by examining spoken naming accuracy and the use of spontaneous gestures in a picture naming task. Fifteen children with DS (range 3.8-8.3 years) were compared to typically developing children (TD), matched for chronological age and developmental age (range 2.6-4.3 years). Relative to TD children, children with DS were less accurate in speech (producing a greater number of unintelligible answers), yet they produced more gestures overall and of these a significantly higher percentage of iconic gestures. Furthermore, the iconic gestures produced by children with DS accompanied by incorrect or no speech often expressed a concept similar to that of the target word, suggesting deeper conceptual knowledge relative to that expressed only in speech.
Stefanini
Silvia
S
Department of Neurosciences, University of Parma, via Volturno, 39, 43100 Parma, Italy. silvia.stefanini@nemo.unipr.it
Caselli
Maria Cristina
MC
Volterra
Virginia
V
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004314:Down Syndrome / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D016555:Matched-Pair Analysis; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D013060:Speech