Maternal wait time after questions for children with and without Down syndrome.
Moms wait less time for Down syndrome kids to answer, stealing practice chances even though the kids can respond if given time.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers watched moms talk with their kids at home. Half the kids had Down syndrome. The other half were the same language age but had no disability.
The team timed how long each mom waited after asking a question that got no answer.
What they found
Moms gave their Down syndrome kids less time to answer. They waited about 1.8 seconds. With the other kids they waited about 2.5 seconds.
When the Down syndrome kids did answer, they needed the same time as the other kids. Cutting the wait time took away their chance to speak.
How this fits with other research
Pino (2000) saw the same pattern during meals. Moms of Down syndrome kids used more teacher-style talk and fewer warm words. Mealtime made the gap bigger.
Johnston et al. (1997) looked at the same year and same groups. Parents said their Down syndrome preschoolers had good pragmatic skills. The kids could talk; moms just rushed them.
Busch et al. (2010) added an autism group. Moms of autistic kids felt even more stress. The rush seen in Adkins et al. (1997) is part of a wider trend: moms speed up when they think the child may struggle.
Why it matters
You can coach parents to count silently to three before jumping in. This tiny pause gives the child time to process and reply. Use video models and real-time feedback during home sessions. The child gets more practice, and the parent sees the payoff right away.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Maternal wait time after open- and closed-ended questions provided during conversation to eight children with Down syndrome (DS) and eight language-age (LA) matched peers was investigated. Analysis of wait time after questions that children did not answer indicated that a longer wait time was provided for LA children (M = 2.5 seconds) than for DS children (M = 1.8 seconds). These wait times were matched well with the children's response times when they did answer questions; LA children taking a mean of 1.9 seconds and DS children a mean of 1.0 seconds to respond. Unlike DS children, LA children took significantly longer to respond when their answers were not topic-related to the maternal question. For both groups, there was no difference in wait times after closed- and open-ended questions and no difference for questions for which joint attention was and was not established.
Research in developmental disabilities, 1997 · doi:10.1016/s0891-4222(96)00042-x