Assessment of cognitive, linguistic and mnemonic competences of people with Down’s syndrome ; for an integrative conception of mental retardation

Lying within the scope of the integrative theories of mental retardation, this research studies the processes of memorizing used by people with Down’s syndrome and more particularly, the strategy of active rehearsal. The latter is defined as being the cumulative repetition of the verbal items to memorize. From this point of view, we undertook three research studies aiming at evaluating the impact of the modifications of the environment on the use of this strategy (in particular by means of a training program). The first two studies relate to adults and the last one, on children and teenagers. Moreover, the effect of linguistic competences in the use of this mnemonic strategy is examined. Furthermore, the study of this population raises many questions relating to the constitution of homogeneous groups and the evaluation of their developmental level (cognitive and linguistic), as well as the development of the various short-term memories. This work also presents our proposals for a solution to these three points