Prospective memory in adults with down syndrome

Abstract

Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember one’s intentions (what I must do), at the appropriate time, in the future (when I must do it). The objective of this work is to study the performance of people with Down syndrome (DS) compared to two control groups, matched by mental age and chronological age. For this purpose, an adapted version of the virtual week, which is an ecological test to simulate the functioning of PM in everyday life, was used. The results suggest that people with DS have difficulties in PM that mainly concern the binding (association) between prospective (when to do) and retrospective (what to do) components. Moreover, people with DS perform better in PM when the task is repeated and time-based. These results are discussed in light of studies conducted with other populations.

Keywords:

• Adults with down syndrome
• virtual week

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 CPP: Committee for the Protection of Persons for the Aquitaine and French overseas territories.

2 COERLE: Ethics committee of the French National Institute for computer science and applied mathematics (INRIA).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the International Foundation of Applied Disability Research and the Comité national Coordination Action Handicap.