How do maternal interaction style and joint attention relate to language development in infants with Down syndrome and typically developing infants?
Teaching toddlers with Down syndrome to respond to joint attention may grow language faster than boosting mom's positive emotion.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers watched 40 babies. Half had Down syndrome. Half were typical.
They filmed moms playing with their babies at 12 months.
They scored how often the baby looked where mom pointed. They also scored mom's happy talk.
At 24 months they tested each child's language with a standard checklist.
What they found
Babies with Down syndrome who looked where mom pointed had bigger vocabularies later.
Typical babies did not need that skill. Instead, they learned more words when mom stayed cheerful.
Two different roads lead to language, depending on the diagnosis.
How this fits with other research
Iao et al. (2024) found the same link in 74 Taiwanese toddlers with autism. Responding to pointing also forecast later language. This shows the skill matters across Down syndrome and autism.
Camodeca et al. (2020) looked at speech preference instead of pointing. They found early love of speech predicted language in both typical and at-risk babies. The new study adds pointing skill as another early marker.
Alon (2019) reminds us moms of Down-syndrome and autism kids face different stresses. The new study shows the babies also learn language in different ways.
Why it matters
If you serve toddlers with Down syndrome, teach them to follow your gaze and point. Use bright toys and quick praise when they look. Skip extra cheerfulness—it helps typical kids more. One simple shift can speed up their first words.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Down syndrome (DS) is more detrimental to language acquisition compared to other forms of learning disability. It has been shown that early social communication skills are important for language acquisition in the typical population; however few studies have examined the relationship between early social communication and language in DS. The aim of the current study is to compare the relationship between joint attention and concurrent language skills, and maternal interactive style and concurrent language skills in infants with DS and in typically developing (TD) infants matched for mental age. We also investigated if these relationships differ between children with DS and TD children. Twenty-five infants with DS (17-23 months) and 30 TD infants (9-11 months) were assessed on measures of joint attention, maternal interactive style and language. The results indicated a significant positive relationship between responding to joint attention (RJA) and concurrent language for the DS group, and a significant positive relationship between maternal positive expressed emotion (PEEM) and concurrent language for the TD group. We hypothesise that different social-communication factors are associated with language skills in DS, at least between 17 and 23 months of age compared to TD infants of similar non-verbal and general language abilities.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2018 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2018.08.011