Parental report on socio-communicative behaviours in children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

ABSTRACT

Background Children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) are reported to have socio-communicative impairments. Although many of these children are diagnosed with intellectual disability (ID) and/or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), these populations are seldom used as control groups. Hence, information regarding syndrome-specific socio-communicative challenges is lacking.

Method Parental concerns regarding everyday communication were investigated by means of the Children’s Communication Checklist-2-NL (Geurts, 2007). Twenty children with 22q11.2DS (chronological age: 6 years–13 years 3 months) were compared to 21 children with idiopathic ID and 23 children with idiopathic ID and comorbid ASD. All groups were matched for fluid intelligence (Gf), chronological age, and core language scores.

Results Neglect or inadequate use of context information was more prevalent in children with 22q11.2DS than in children with idiopathic ID. Nonverbal communication seemed less impaired than in children with idiopathic ID + ASD.

Conclusion Pragmatic language skills and developmental trajectories in children with 22q11.2DS merit further investigation.

KEYWORDS:

• 22q11.2 deletion syndrome
• Children's Communication Checklist-2
• socio-communicative behaviour
• parent report
• intellectual disability
• autism spectrum disorder

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the families for their participation, and the coordinators, speech-language pathologists, and teachers of several special needs schools who assisted with recruitment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a grant awarded by the Marguerite-Marie Delacroix Foundation.