Expressive pragmatic skills in pre-school children with and without Down's syndrome: parental perceptions.
Parents see preschoolers with Down syndrome keeping up socially, but direct tests reveal later vocabulary and narrative shortfalls you still need to treat.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Johnston et al. (1997) asked parents of six preschoolers with Down syndrome to rate their child's pragmatic skills. They compared these ratings to parents of typically developing kids matched for language comprehension. The team looked at six everyday skills like greeting, showing, and asking for help.
What they found
Parents said five of the six kids with Down syndrome used pragmatics as well as or better than their matched peers. The only lag was in 'requesting information.' Parents saw strengths in greeting, showing objects, and getting attention.
How this fits with other research
Laugeson et al. (2014) seems to disagree. They tested kids directly and found clear noun-and-verb gaps in Down syndrome. The clash is simple: parent report versus live testing. Parents notice social successes; lab tasks catch missing words.
Newell et al. (2025) later showed older kids with Down syndrome struggle to link story parts smoothly. Together the papers draw a line: early social use can look strong, but deeper language and narrative layers still need work.
Finestack et al. (2017) picked up where the 1997 snapshot left off. They taught personal-story skills to school-age children and saw small gains, proving targeted help is possible once needs are mapped.
Why it matters
Do not let good parent reports stall therapy. Use them as a strength list while you probe for hidden gaps in vocabulary and narrative cohesion. Start goals that stretch nouns, verbs, and question forms even when social routines look fine.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Parental perceptions of the pragmatic skills of six pre-school children with Down's syndrome were compared to those of six children without cognitive impairment. Children were matched for language comprehension age on the Reynell Developmental Language Scale and parents were interviewed using the Pragmatics Profile of Early Communication Skills. Data from the parental interviews was analysed taking a qualitative approach, using the technique of content analysis. The results showed that the children with and without Down's syndrome had many similarities in reported behaviours and responses In addition, five out of the six children with Down's syndrome had some skills which were more advanced than their matched pairs. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed. The evidence suggests that children with Down's syndrome have a normal range of pragmatic skills and communicative intentions compared with children of similar levels of comprehension functioning at an early pre-school level.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 1997 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.1997.tb00673.x