Session 1: Symposium: Into the wild! Understanding the development of young children with Down syndrome in everyday interactions and environments
Symposium organiser: Hana D'Souza, Cardiff University
Contact: Hana D'Souza (dsouzah@cardiff.ac.uk)
Even young infants actively sample and select aspects of their environment by moving their eyes, and later by reaching towards people and objects and eventually locomoting. The development of these attentional and motor abilities has been proposed to play a crucial role in gating access to what children hear (their auditory experiences) and see (their visual experiences) and, as a result, guide their learning. Young children with Down syndrome often experience difficulties in attentional and motor abilities in early development. Commonly used static screen-based methods and standardised tests limit our understanding of (a) how attentional and motor difficulties constrain the everyday experiences of young children with Down syndrome, (b) how they impede children's learning opportunities moment-by-moment, and (c) how they steer their developmental trajectories early in life when they are the most malleable. The aim of this symposium is to bring together cutting-edge technological advancements (head-mounted eye-tracking, Language ENvironment Analysis [LENA], and head-mounted cameras) and current developmental frameworks to embrace the first-person experiences of children with Down syndrome in the first five years of life "in the wild" – in their everyday interactions and environments. This will transform our understanding and support practices, ultimately improving children's lives.
Symposium structure:
- A brief introduction of the theme (Hana D'Souza)
- Talk 1: Sensorimotor properties of word learning in young children with Down syndrome (Kate Mee)
- Talk 2: Everyday language environments of young children with Down syndrome (Sofia Hryniv)
- Talk 3: Capturing the everyday experiences of young children with Down syndrome: Introducing TinyExplorer gear (Teodor Nikolov)
- Brief discussion (Hana D'Souza)
Sensorimotor Properties of Word Learning in Young Children with Down Syndrome
Kate Mee1, Catalina Suarez-Rivera2,3, Chen Yu4, Hana D'Souza1
- Cardiff University
- New York University
- University College London
- The University of Texas at Austin
Contact: Kate Mee (meek1@cardiff.ac.uk)
Background
Head-mounted eye-tracking has previously been used to identify patterns of sensorimotor behaviour, such as looking at and holding objects, that are associated with word learning in typically developing children (Yu & Smith, 2012; 2017). This is the first study to use head-mounted eye-tracking to explore these processes for children with Down syndrome. The research questions presented here are an extension to the initial steps explored at last year's Forum.
Research Questions
How is child looking behaviour during parent object-naming moments associated with novel word learning, comparing typically developing children and children with Down syndrome?
How is child holding behaviour during parent object-naming moments associated with novel word learning, comparing typically developing children and children with Down syndrome?
Method
Fifteen parent-child dyads of typically developing children (17 – 27 months), and 15 parent-child dyads of children with Down syndrome (36 – 58 months) were included, matched on general ability level. Participants engaged with a free-flowing, novel word-learning paradigm, while wearing head-mounted eye-trackers. Linear-mixed effects models were used to explore how child sensorimotor behaviours during parent labelling of the objects were associated with label learning.
Results
For typically developing children, it was found that looking at the named object was predictive of word learning. Typically developing children were also likely to be holding the named object during parental naming moments. However, no significant relationships were found for children with Down syndrome for either measure.
Conclusion
The findings for typically developing children are reflective of previous research. However, these relationships did not hold for children with Down syndrome. This suggests that there are group level differences in the sensorimotor properties underlying word learning for these children, indicating that further exploration of these processes in children with Down syndrome is necessary. Future directions of analysis will be discussed.
Everyday language environments of young children with Down syndrome
Sofia Hryniv1, Elian Fink2, Merideth Gattis1, & Hana D'Souza1
- Cardiff University
- University of Sussex
Contact: Sofia Hryniv (hrynivs1@cardiff.ac.uk)
Much of what we know about children's language abilities comes from lab-based tasks and parent-report questionnaires. From these measures, we tend to see that children with Down syndrome develop their language skills later and more slowly than typically developing children, and the reasons for this are still being explored. But do the speech patterns observed in the lab actually reflect the amount of speech children with and without Down syndrome hear and produce on a daily basis?
To answer this question, we used automated language recording and processing technology (Language ENvironment Analysis - LENA) to collect audio data in children's home environments. Naturalistic recordings can help us understand what children actually hear and say on a daily basis, and how this might differ for children with and without Down syndrome. Understanding children's early speech environments has the potential to explain variability in later language outcomes and suggest possible mechanisms for these outcomes.
To compare the speech environments of children with and without Down syndrome, the automated LENA outputs for 23 children with Down syndrome (chronological age = 35-58 months) were compared to data from 329 typically developing children, gathered by Gilkerson and Richards (2008; LENA Natural Language study). This presentation explores how the speech that children hear and produce changes with age, discussing the possible reasons for this, and compares the speech environments of children with and without Down syndrome. The presentation also explores how children's speech environments might relate to later measures of expressive and receptive language abilities.
Capturing the Everyday Experiences of Young Children with Down Syndrome: Introducing TinyExplorer Gear
Teodor Y. Nikolov & Hana D'Souza
Cardiff University
Contact: Teodor Nikolov (nikolovty@cardiff.ac.uk)
Many children with Down syndrome experience difficulties with their motor development. Surprisingly, we understand very little about how these difficulties impact their everyday experiences and influence their learning. In this talk, we will introduce a new piece of equipment which enables us to capture these everyday experiences – TinyExplorer gear. This lightweight and user-friendly head-mounted camera (headcam) records what young children with Down syndrome hear (auditory experiences) and see (visual experiences) from their own perspective.
We will introduce a study we are currently carrying out using the TinyExplorer gear with children with Down syndrome in the first five years of life. We are hoping this study will shed light on the developmental trajectories of auditory and visual experiences during this important period of development. Given the critical role of early motor abilities (including eye movements, reaching, sitting, and locomotion) in facilitating interaction with the environment, motor difficulties can potentially limit the diversity and richness of experiences available to some children.
We hope that the findings from this research will provide valuable insights into how motor difficulties might constrain the everyday auditory and visual experiences of young children with Down syndrome. This, in turn, can inform the development of targeted support designed to enhance learning opportunities and facilitate overall developmental outcomes.
This approach highlights the interconnectedness of motor and auditory/visual development, offering an important perspective on the challenges and opportunities present in the early developmental trajectories of children with Down syndrome.
