DOWN SYNDROME AND REFERENTIAL COMMUNICATION:  UNDERSTANDING AND PRODUCTION

Abstract

Children with Down Syndrome (DS) have a delay that affects the global motor development, cognitive, communicative and linguistic. From the literature shows that these subjects follow the same general line of language acquisition of children with typical development, although their language remains behind their non-verbal cognitive abilities and then proceed with a slower. In our study we have set ourselves the objective to investigate some critical dimensions of the communicative function in particular, referential communication, which means the subject's ability to produce messages "referentially oriented”, or messages that allow the listener to recognize the immediacy of contact with the target and the ability to understand messages, or characterized by clarity "referential ambiguity". OBJECTIVE The objective is to evaluate the relationship between subjects with DS understanding of the written message and the ability referential communication. SAMPLE Participating in the research 6 children with DS of chronological age between 5 and 11 years and 6 typically developing children between 5 and 11 individually matched to children with DS to the cognitive level. METHOD The tests were administered to 12 subjects individually in three phases and three different times for each participant. First Phase: (CPM - Raven's Progressive Matrices) - (Raven 1996) Second Phase: (TOR - Text Comprehension Test of Oral) - (M.C. Levorato, M. Roch, 2007 ) Third Phase: (PCR - Test of Referential Communication) - (L. Camaioni, A.P Ercolani, P. Lloyd, 1995) RESULTS The results demonstrate that in subjects with DS, the ability to understand the message written positively influences the ability of referential communication. CONCLUSION The data suggest some interesting directions that can be used for planning intervention programs aimed at strengthening and recovery of the communicative dimension.