Abstract

This study examined the interactional features of maternal input provided to 40 school-age children with Down syndrome (DS) during a wordless storybook context. The study aims were to (1) describe three main types of interactional features: prompting, verbal responding, and directing the interaction of maternal input during a wordless storybook task and (2) examine the association between the different types of maternal input and child characteristics (nonverbal IQ, MLUm, and expressive vocabulary). Results indicated that mothers spent the majority of their time telling the story. Prompting was the highest frequency and rate of the interactional features of maternal talk. Maternal talk that was verbally responsive was the next highest frequency and rate, and then directing the interaction followed. No significant association was observed between the interactional features of maternal talk and child characteristics. Overall, these findings suggest that mothers of school-age children with DS still engage in a storybook context and frequently use the interactional features of maternal talk.

NIH Grant R03HD083596 PI: Channell.

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