Techniques currently recognised as the best practice method of teaching children with Down Syndrome how to read and develop speech and language skills.

How it works

Using the Oxford Reading Tree books, and the DSDT’s own resources for sentence recognition and flash cards, we enable care providers and parents with important visual aids in developing and improving reading fluency.

Getting ready to read

Other elements of the reading intervention include preparing for reading: work on sensory integration exercises (getting the body ready), and music and rhythm practice. Both scientifically proven to better develop brain organisation and focus.

This scheme is designed to get you started on good reading practice. DSDT staff will guide you through the activities, and provide you with advice on how to further implement them into your day.

Who is it available to?

The intervention is available to schools or individuals wanting to develop their child’s reading and ultimately speech and language skills.

How can I sign up?

To effectively get you into the swing, we offer a course of five sessions each lasting 45 minutes, over a period of five weeks.
This provides you the opportunity to ask further questions as issues arise during this time.

Now available as part of our Covid 19 remote learning services

How do I get more resources?

Additional batches of books and resources are available to purchase or loan.

For all enquiries and costs please:

• Email: hello@downsyndromedevelopment.org.uk,
• or call: DSDT Tel: 07897 373839

A research study, recently published in the Journal of Child Language, has reported that children with Down syndrome can benefit from the use of written words alongside pictures to help teach spoken vocabulary.

A research study, recently published in the Journal of Child Language [1], has reported that children with Down syndrome can benefit from the use of written words to support oral vocabulary learning.

In the study, 17 children with Down syndrome aged 7 to 16 years were taught 10 nonwords (words that do not mean anything but can be pronounced – e.g. “vum”, “sav”, “zot”). The children were told that they were going to learn about an alien planet and shown pictures of imaginary alien objects corresponding to each nonword. Half of the nonwords were taught with flashcards showing the English spelling, while half were taught accompanied by flashcards showing ‘alien’ spellings (random Greek letters).

The children were tested 10-15 minutes after training by showing them the pictures corresponding to the nonwords they had been taught and asking them if they could remember the names.

The study found that children with Down syndrome learned more nonwords taught with flashcards showing the English spelling than nonwords taught with flashcards showing ‘alien’ spellings. The authors argue that this shows that the written word enables the children to use their knowledge of letters and corresponding sounds to confirm what the word should sound like when spoken and offers another representation of the word in memory that aids retrieval.

The study also compared the performance of the children with Down syndrome to typically developing children matched on single word reading ability. It found that children with Down syndrome benefited from the presence of written words to the same extent as typically developing children.

The authors conclude that “this study has shown that children with Down syndrome are able to learn the phonological form of new words to the same level as typically developing children matched for reading, and that they benefit from orthography to the same degree as typically developing children. A practical application of this work is that children would benefit from being shown a flashcard of the written form of a word when learning its spoken form. This lends empirical support to current practice recommended for children with Down syndrome…”

The study was supported by a CASE PhD studentship from the UK Economic and Social Research Council and Down Syndrome Education International.

Reference

1. Mengoni, S. E., Nash, H. and Hulme, C. (2013). The benefit of orthographic support for oral vocabulary learning in children with Down syndrome. Journal of Child Language, 40(1), 221-243. https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305000912000396 and
   https://www.dseinternational.org/en-gb/news/.