A comparative study of mastery motivation in young children with Down's syndrome: similar outcomes, different processes?
Toddlers with Down syndrome keep trying just as long as mental-age peers, so assume delayed skills, not poor motivation.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched 24- to 36-month-old toddlers with Down syndrome tackle hard puzzles.
They timed how long each child kept trying before giving up.
The kids were matched by mental age to typically developing toddlers so the scores were fair.
Mothers also filled out a short survey about how persistent they thought their child was at home.
What they found
Both groups stayed on the puzzle the same amount of time.
Persistence scores were nearly identical, even though the Down syndrome kids had lower IQs.
Moms of Down syndrome toddlers rated their kids as less motivated, even though the stopwatch said otherwise.
The study shows the children want to learn; they just need more time.
How this fits with other research
One year earlier, Saville et al. (2002) saw the same “delay not deficit” pattern in verbal memory.
Their Down syndrome group recalled fewer words, but the gap vanished when mental age was held steady.
Vos et al. (2013) later found the same thing in arm movements: central timing, not weak muscles, slowed the kids down.
Together the three papers say Down syndrome rarely breaks the rulebook; it just turns the pages more slowly.
Why it matters
Stop labeling a child as “unmotivated” when tasks look hard.
Set the skill step at mental age, not birth age, and expect full engagement.
Use extra wait time and visual cues; the drive is there.
Plan longer practice blocks and celebrate small wins—the child will keep working if you let the clock run.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Findings from previous research into motivation in young children with Down's syndrome (DS) have been mixed. Some studies have suggested that development is merely delayed, while others have proposed that there are inherent differences or deficits. Using the mastery motivation paradigm, studies of young children have often found that those with DS are just as persistent and goal-directed as typically developing children of the same mental age (MA). However, research involving children with DS with MAs above 2 years is very limited. The major aim of the present study was to extend previous research by focusing on children with MAs between 24 and 36 months. A secondary aim was to investigate issues which would advance conceptual knowledge about the construct of mastery motivation. METHOD: The participants were 25 children with DS and 43 typically developing children, matched for MA (24-36 months). The main measures of mastery motivation were persistence with structured mastery tasks (i.e. puzzles and shape-sorters) and maternal reports. RESULTS: With the challenging tasks, children with DS were just as persistent as the typically developing children. Correlations of persistence measures in the group with DS suggested that persistence for these children represented a more generalized approach rather than a task-specific response. Maternal ratings of persistence were lower in the group with DS. CONCLUSIONS: The main conclusion was that children with DS in the MA range of 24-36 months do not differ in their persistence with challenging tasks when compared with typically developing children of the same MA. The implication is that motivational development is delayed for children with DS, rather than deficient. However, there were some indications of possible differences in the processes underlying mastery behaviour in the two groups. The study addresses a number of conceptual and methodological issues associated with mastery motivation research, and stresses the important contribution that future longitudinal studies could make.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2003 · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2788.2003.00460.x