Non-word repetition and vocabulary in Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children with down syndrome and typically developing children

Abstract

Overview

Non-word repetition (NWR) is one of the most effective predictors of language impairments in children as it has been found to correlate with various language measures and the association between NWR and vocabulary is well documented in typically developing (TD) studies. However, there is a dire need for investigations of language skills in Kuwaiti Arabic individuals with Down Syndrome, and this study set out to fill a gap in this field.

Method

In this paper, we compare the vocabulary and NWR skills of a group of 48 individuals with DS aged 6–20 years to a group of 44 TD children aged 3–10 years matched on nonverbal IQ. Furthermore, we investigate the correlations among these language measures in the two groups and examine whether NWR can predict receptive and expressive vocabulary in these two groups.

Result

Results found DS participants performed significantly less than the TD group on the three language measures (receptive vocabulary t(90)= −3.17, p < .01, expressive vocabulary t(90)= −3.27, p < .01, and NWR t(90)= −8.32, p < .01). Moreover, there were strong correlations between NWR and vocabulary (receptive and expressive) in the TD group but not the DS group.

Conclusion

Findings supported the working memory model and the phonological processing account for the TD group. On the other hand, the poor association between NWR and vocabulary in the DS group might be due to poor phonological discrimination difficulties and speech discrimination difficulties.

Keywords:

• Down syndrome
• non-word repetition
• vocabulary and down syndrome
• Kuwaiti Arabic

Acknowledgments

Our thanks go to the children and their families who participated in the study. We would like to thank the special education school for special needs in Kuwait for facilitating the administration of our protocol to participants with DS. This publication was made possible by the support of the American University of Kuwait (AUK) Open Access Publishing Fund.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicity available due to ethical restrictions.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no external funding.