Vocalization patterns in young children with Down syndrome: Utilizing the language environment analysis (LENA) to inform behavioral phenotypes

The complexity of opportunities to respond used by mothers and fathers of children with Down syndrome: A preliminary investigation

Caregiver-child interactions are commonly used to examine children's language learning environment. However, few studies consider interaction configurations beyond dyadic interactions or explore the conceptual complexity of caregiver talk. Thus, we examined if the complexity of a caregiver's opportunities to respond (OTR) varied when sampled across three interaction configurations. Our study included twelve preschool-aged children with Down syndrome and both of their biological parents. Our preliminary findings suggest no differences in mothers' and fathers' frequency of OTRs across complexity levels during dyadic interactions. However, caregivers produced fewer OTRs across complexity levels during family choice than dyadic interactions.

Opportunities to Respond During Dyadic Caregiver-Child and Naturalistic Family Interactions Among Children With Down Syndrome: A Preliminary Investigation

PURPOSE

Dyadic caregiver-child interactions are commonly used to examine children's language learning environments. However, children frequently interact with multiple caregivers and/or siblings if they come from homes with multiple caregivers and siblings. Thus, we examined if and how caregiver opportunities to respond (OTRs) varied when sampled across three interaction configurations.

METHOD

Twelve children with Down syndrome (Mage = 40.82 months) and their biological parents participated in the current study. We collected separate mother-child and father-child dyadic interactions and one family choice interaction (i.e., both caregivers present and occasionally siblings) in families' homes. We analyzed if differences in the caregiver's OTR frequency and type-explicit and implicit-existed among dyadic and family choice configurations.

RESULTS

We found that, during family choice interactions, children were exposed to fewer OTRs when combining the total number of father and mother OTRs compared to dyadic caregiver-child interactions. This effect was large for explicit OTRs (mother-dyadic vs. combined family choice: g = -1.99, confidence interval [CI] [-3.00, -1.00]; father-dyadic vs. combined family choice: g = -0.84, CI [-1.84, -0.11]). For implicit OTRs, effects were small for mother-dyadic versus combined family choice (g = -0.34, CI [-1.17, 0.48]) and negligible when comparing father-dyadic with combined family choice (g = -0.08, CI [-0.90, 0.73]).

CONCLUSION

Our preliminary findings highlight the need for a more nuanced understanding of children's language learning environments to better understand how caregivers support their children's language development.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25579905.

Challenges and Opportunities for Translation of Therapies to Improve Cognition in Down Syndrome

While preclinical studies have reported improvement of behavioral deficits in the Ts65Dn mouse model of Down syndrome (DS), translation to human clinical trials to improve cognition in individuals with DS has had a poor success record. Timing of the intervention, choice of animal models, strategy for drug selection, and lack of translational endpoints between animals and humans contributed to prior failures of human clinical trials. Here, we focus on in vitro cell models from humans with DS to identify the molecular mechanisms underlying the brain phenotype associated with DS. We emphasize the importance of using these cell models to screen for therapeutic molecules, followed by validating them in the most suitable animal models prior to initiating human clinical trials.