Occurrence of Reading Skills in a National Age Cohort of Norwegian Children with Down Syndrome: What Characterizes Those Who Develop Early Reading Skills?

Kari-Anne B Næss,Egil Nygaard,Elizabeth Smith

doi:10.3390/brainsci11050527

Kari-Anne B Næss, Egil Nygaard + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050527

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Journal: Brain sciences	Publication Date: Apr 21, 2021
Citations: 1	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Oslo, Cardiff University

Abstract

Children with Down syndrome are at risk of reading difficulties. Reading skills are crucial for social and academic development, and thus, understanding the nature of reading in this clinical group is important. This longitudinal study investigated the occurrence of reading skills in a Norwegian national age cohort of 43 children with Down syndrome from the beginning of first grade to third grade. Data were collected to determine which characteristics distinguished those who developed early reading skills from those who did not. The children′s decoding skills, phonological awareness, nonverbal mental ability, vocabulary, verbal short-term memory, letter knowledge and rapid automatized naming (RAN) performance were measured annually. The results showed that 18.6% of the children developed early decoding skills by third grade. Prior to onset, children who developed decoding skills had a significantly superior vocabulary and letter knowledge than non-readers after controlling for nonverbal mental abilities. These findings indicate that early specific training that focuses on vocabulary and knowledge of words and letters may be particularly effective in promoting reading onset in children with Down syndrome.

Highlights

Reading is the cognitive process of decoding words and obtaining meaning from text [1]
In the present study, we ask the following research questions: (1) What is the occurrence of reading skills in a national age cohort of Norwegian children with Down syndrome in grades 1, 2 and 3, and (2) what distinguishes the cognitive profiles of readers and non-readers prior to reading onset? The present study focuses on an age cohort to provide more specific information about occurrence in relation to age to better inform expectations, and it includes a measure of parental report alongside a standardized measure to draw comparisons between outcomes for these respective measures
Bold = significant group differences (p ≤ 0.05). This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the occurrence of reading skills in a Norwegian age cohort of children with Down syndrome at 1st (T1), 2nd (T2) and 3rd (T3) grade and to provide insight into early abilities, as these abilities may differ between children who do and do not develop early reading skills during this period

Summary

Introduction

Reading is the cognitive process of decoding words and obtaining meaning from text [1]. Functional reading skills expand opportunities for learning and participation in educational and social activities at home, in school, at work and in society [2,3], substantially impacting individuals’ lives. Due to their reduced cognitive capacity, children with Down syndrome often experience reading difficulties [4]. In recent decades reading skills and other academic achievements have improved among children with Down syndrome [5]. We collected information about the types of Down syndrome, school types, permanent hearing loss and the parents’ highest educational level. A mean parental score was calculated based on the average of the mother’s and father s educational level

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