Communication profiles of individuals with Down's syndrome, Angelman syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder.

The team compared how three groups use words to get what they want. They looked at children and adults with Down syndrome, Angelman syndrome, and pervasive developmental disorder.

They scored each person on three verbal skills: asking for items (mands), naming items (tacts), and repeating what they hear (echoics).

Down syndrome learners named and echoed better than they asked. Angelman learners almost never echoed. All three groups asked and named at about the same level.

No big gaps showed up between the syndromes on mands or tacts. The stand-out clue was the missing echoics in Angelman syndrome.

Godfrey et al. (2019) later showed that kids with both Down syndrome and autism can look different from either condition alone. Their work extends this 2002 snapshot by adding autism-symptom numbers.

Greer et al. (2013) also studied Angelman syndrome and found high autism-screen scores. This backs up the echoic gap seen here, but adds that social joy can still be strong in AS.

Scior et al. (2023) interviewed caregivers and described rich, multi-modal communication in Angelman syndrome. Their qualitative detail fills in why echoics are weak: many use signs, gestures, or devices instead of spoken repeats.

Use these quick profiles to pick first communication goals. If you see Angelman syndrome, skip pure echoic drills and start with signs or AAC. If you see Down syndrome, build asking skills first because naming is already ahead. The papers that followed keep confirming these patterns, so you can trust the shortcut.