A Longitudinal Study of Narrative Development in Children and Adolescents with Down Syndrome

The present study examined narrative development in children and adolescents with Down syndrome longitudinally. Narratives were collected from 32 children and adolescents with Down syndrome three times over a 1-year period. Both micro- and macrolevel analyses were conducted. Significant growth over the 1-year period was seen in semantic complexity and narrative structure. However, there was no evidence of growth in syntactic complexity or narrative length. Mental age and comprehension skills at Time 1 predicted scores in all 4 areas at Time 3. Expressive language skills added further to the prediction of syntactic complexity and story length.