Preliminary Study on Verb Acquisition Status and Related Factors in Children with Down Syndrome

Abstract

Conditions supporting the acquisition of verbs by children with Down syndrome were investigated from early childhood to lower grades of elementary school. Moreover, correlations between verb acquisition and parents’ approaches to their children were analyzed. Participants were parents having children with Down syndrome that had acquired meaningful words (n=27). The “words and grammar” version of the Japanese MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventories (JCDls) was administered to examine the parents’ involvement. The results indicated that when the total number of expressed vocabularies exceeded 200, the rate of acquiring verbs increased even in children with Down syndrome, which indicated that “200 words” was an important criterion. Moreover, results suggested that reading and writing letters and numbers as well as teaching children the polite use of language used by parents supported verb acquisition by children with Down syndrome. polite language.” Otomo et al. (2005) examined language development in TD children from early childhood to childhood and suggested “teaching polite language” might provide new perspectives and expression methods to children, which were not previously in the children’s repertory. The results of the present study suggest that parents’ approaches to DS children, i.e., teaching polite language, might increase expressive vocabulary words.