Speech and Language Programs for the Down's Population

Down's syndrome is a condition generally diagnosed at birth, and the use of a wide variety of intervention procedures that can assist the Down's child in his development of speech and language begins. Most importantly, the procedures can be applied at that time in his life when speech and language should naturally be taking form. For most afflicted children, early intervention is necessary in order to offset the influences that impede or prevent speech and language development from taking place. To say that all Down's children will profit from any one technique or from all of them together is erroneous. The children in this population are at least as varied in their developmental needs as are children in the normal population. Typically, however, we see an older Down's child who is seriously deficient in both oral language expression and articulation of speech as compared with his overall functioning ability or his mental age (MA). In addition to these difficulties, and no doubt contributing to them, we see this child demonstrating underdeveloped listening skills, stemming from factors influencing his hearing. Intervention measures designed to offset these deficiencies are discussed in this article.