Social cognition in children with Down's syndrome: challenges to research and theory building

Abstract

Characterising how socio‐cognitive abilities develop has been crucial to understanding the wider development of typically developing children. It is equally central to understanding developmental pathways in children with intellectual disabilities such as Down's syndrome. While the process of acquisition of socio‐cognitive abilities in typical development and in autism has received considerable attention, socio‐cognitive development in Down's syndrome has received far less scrutiny. Initial work in the 1970s and 1980s provided important insights into the emergence of socio‐cognitive abilities in the children's early years, and recently there has been a marked revival of interest in this area, with research focusing both on a broader range of abilities and on a wider age range. This annotation reviews some of these more recent findings, identifies outstanding gaps in current understanding, and stresses the importance of the development of theory in advancing research and knowledge in this field. Barriers to theory building are discussed and the potential utility of adopting a transactional approach to theory building illustrated with reference to a model of early socio‐cognitive development in Down's syndrome. The need for a more extensive model of social cognition is emphasised, as is the need for larger‐scale, finer‐grained, longitudinal work which recognises the within‐individual and within‐group variability which characterises this population. The value of drawing on new technologies and of adapting innovative research paradigms from other areas of typical and atypical child psychology is also highlighted.

Emotion Knowledge in Children and Adolescents With Down Syndrome: A New Methodological Approach

“…Compared to other aspects of the DS phenotype, social development has been understudied (Cebula et al, 2010;Cebula & Wishart, 2008). This may be due in part to a ''friendly stereotype'' associated with individuals with DS, through which they are commonly viewed as highly sociable, happy, affectionate, and adept at understanding others (Gibbs & Thorpe, 1983).…”

“…However, there seems to be a general pattern of relative cognitive and linguistic strengths (i.e., visuospatial processing and receptive vocabulary) and challenges (i.e., expressive language, language comprehension, and auditory short-term memory) common to most individuals with DS (Abbeduto, Warren, & Conners, 2007;Chapman & Hesketh, 2000). Far less is known about social cognitive development in DS, and it is only recently that researchers have begun to turn their attention to this domain within the phenotype (Cebula, Moore, & Wishart, 2010;Cebula & Wishart, 2008). Our investigation focused on one aspect of social cognitive development, emotion knowledge, in youth with DS.…”

Recognition of facial emotional expressions and its correlation with cognitive abilities in children with Down syndrome.

“…Studies have been performed to comprehend the processing of faces in children with DS, most of them related to emotional recognition (Cebula et al, 2010;Hippolyte et al, 2009;Williams et al, 2005;Wishart et al, 2007;Wishart & Pitcairn, 2000). In the present study, we investigated the perception of facial emotional expressions in a group of children with DS and a group of children with regular development using the TEPEF.…”

“…Wishart et al (2007) compared an intellectual disability group that included DS children (6-18 years old) with typically developing children (2.7-7.5 years old). For many children with DS, relative to their peers, comprehending their emotions and intentions is as complex as any ability of development (Cebula et al, 2010).…”

“…Most of the studies addessed the recognition of facial emotional features (Cebula, Moore, & Wishart, 2010;Williams et al, 2005;Wishart & Pitcairn, 2000;Wishart, Cebula, Willis, & Pitcairn, 2007) and compared children to DS and children with other kinds of intellectual disabilities but who had equivalent cognitive and linguistic status in a very heterogeneous age group, including preschoolers and teenagers. Williams et al (2005) compared a DS group (7.6-17.6 years old) with children with nonspecific intellectual disabilities (6-17.4 years old) and typically developing children (2.7-5.5 years old).…”