Social and cognitive development in children with Down syndrome: trying to build wider developmental models?

Children with Down’s syndrome (DS) are often portrayed as being sociable and engaging. This has led some to suggest that their social development is relatively spared in comparison to their cognitive development. This talk presents an overview of the somewhat limited amount of work that has examined the social cognition of children with DS. I will raise questions about whether we have a complete and adequate picture of their social abilities and highlight the importance of taking a developmental approach to these issues and of considering how the social and cognitive domains impact on each other over the course of their development. I will present findings from work looking at the development of infants with DS and present a preliminary model that begins to crystalise out some of the possible developmental pathways that determine the unique profile of social abilities found in children with DS. I will demonstrate how essential it is to consider all levels of explanation (neurobiological, cognitive, behavioural and social-environmental) when characterising the social and cognitive abilities of children with DS