Cross Modal Generalization of Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary in Children with Down Syndrome

Abstract

Objective: A common assumption in vocabulary training for Down syndrome (DS) is that learning in one modality will generalize incidentally to untreated modalities, but few studies evaluate the validity of this presumption. The purpose of this study was to examine cross modal generalization in children with DS. Method: Five preschool children with DS were taught three sets of receptive and expressive vocabulary within a multiple probe single subject design. Vocabulary knowledge for trained and untrained modalities was probed. Results: Cross modal generalization probes indicated moderate transfer from the treated expressive modality to the untreated receptive modality but relatively low receptive generalization to the untreated expressive modality in all participants. Conclusion: These results support delivering expressive vocabulary interventions in DS provided clinicians systematically test generalization to receptive knowledge. Conversely, receptive vocabulary training, although certainly a worthwhile goal for children with DS, is less likely to generalize across modality.