Núcleo Disca

This article, published in Frontiers in Psychology, presents important findings on reading acquisition in Chilean children with Down syndrome.

Points of interest:

• This study explores the performance of 42 Chilean children with Down syndrome on a set of reading precursors (phonological awareness, visual recognition, vocabulary, letter knowledge, and verbal reasoning). The age of these children ranges from 6 to 11 years.
• 23 participants attended special schools and 19 attended regular schools. The analysis led to reflection on the transformations that should be considered when designing educational programs aimed at reading instruction for children with Down syndrome.
• The results suggest that children with Down syndrome exhibit a significant improvement in performance after the age of 7, based on the differences found among the three age groups compared in this study.
• There is a general delay in reading precursors within the group, indicating that children with Down syndrome require even more time to strengthen these skills and, thereby, progress in the formal process of learning to read.
• The results obtained also suggest that the reading skills of a group of Spanish-speaking children with Down syndrome are sensitive to change and improve with age.

Notes:

• The following summary was prepared by Núcleo Milenio DISCA and is based exclusively on the original publication. Therefore, it should not be used for citations or references.
• This article was originally published in English.

Arango PS, Escobar JP, Orellana P, Aparicio A, Strasser K, Rosas R and Tenorio M (2023) Study of a set of reading precursors among Chilean children with Down syndrome. Front. Psychol. 14:1090710. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1090710