No abstract

-Several cross-sectional studies and one longitudinal study were conducted on the language abilities of various cohorts of persons with Down syndrome aged between 14 and 50 years. No signifi cant difference was observed on any of the receptive and productive morphosyntactic and lexical measures used, suggesting no marked change in the language of these persons from adolescence onto late adulthood. Repeated measures of cerebral metabolic rate (CMR) for fl uorodeoxyglucose using a Positron Emission Tomography were made over a 4-year interval with 7 participants with Down syndrome aged between 37 and 49 years. A gradual decrease in global CMR for both cerebral hemispheres and for each participant was documented. It was particularly marked for 3 participants. However, no language deterioration could be associated with their marked lowering in CMR.

There is a large body of evidence showing that comparison leads to better conceptualization and generalization of novel names than no-comparison settings in typically developing (TD) children (e.g., Gentner, 2010). So far, comparison situations have not been studied with children with intellectual disabilities (ID) (Chapman & Kay-Raining Bird, 2012). In the present research children with ID and TD children matched on mental age with the Ravens coloured progressive matrices RCPM (Raven, 1965) were tested in several comparison conditions. We manipulated the conceptual distance between stimuli in the learning phase and between the learning phase stimuli and the generalization phase stimuli for object and relational nouns. Results showed that overall both populations had rather similar performance profile when matched on their cognitive skills (low vs. high functioning). Unexpectedly, ID childrens performance was equivalent or better than their TD peers. We discuss our results in terms of the role of conceptual distance on participants conceptual generalization as a function of their intellectual abilities and cognitive functioning.

No abstract

No abstract