Exploring verbosity, presupposition and narrative skills in children with intellectual disability

Purpose: Differences across children with intellectual disability (ID) at the behavioral level can help us to understand the influence of genetic and brain architectures to oral language development (Rondal, 2001; Shprintzen, 1997). Children with ID seem to acquire some basic pragmatic language skills but detailed cross-syndrome pragmatic language research is rare. Nevertheless, this is a very interesting study area because of the debate concerning the relationship between language and cognition and the connection of pragmatics to social skills, functional everyday communication and quality of life (Hatton, 1998). Methods: This study provides a cross-sectional analysis of four groups of children with ID (CA: 6-12y. MA: 4-10y). One group of children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2 DS) and one group of children with Williams Syndrome (WS) are included. These children are compared with mental age matched control groups of children with ID with unknown etiology, children with ID and comorbid autism spectrum disorder of unclear cause and typical developing children. This presentation highlights the main pragmatic characteristics evaluated by means of the Renfrew Language Scales Dutch Adaptation (RTNA). The Action Picture Test allowed us to measure the specificity of the words used to convey information and to analyze in the depth the type of utterance of a child. A micro- and macrostructure analysis was carried out based on samples of the Bus Story Test. Results: The results indicate syndromic as well as individual within-syndrome variability on the extent and content of verbosity, the adequacy of information transfer and the ability of retelling a story. Pragmatic language profiles of the different groups are summarized and explanatory factors are discussed. Conclusion: The differences in language development across groups can contribute to the current debates about modularity and neuroconstructivism. We plan a longitudinal study of the language skills in order to describe changes in language profiles. This can lead to improving parental advice and communicative intervention in these children throughout childhood.status: publishe