Ben Sacks

Social development for individuals with Down syndrome - An overview

Social development includes social interactive skills with children and adults, social understanding and empathy, friendships, play and leisure skills, personal and social independence and socially appropriate behaviour. Each of these areas of development is discussed, drawing on the available research literature. Social understanding, empathy and social interactive skills are strengths for children and adults with Down syndrome, which can be built on throughout life to enhance their social inclusion and quality of life. The opportunity to establish friendships may be affected by social independence and by speech and language and cognitive delay. Parents and teachers need to think about ways of increasing the friendship opportunities of children during primary school and teenage years. The importance of friendships with both typically developing peers and peers with similar disabilities is stressed, as is the need to develop play, leisure and independence skills. Most children and teenagers with Down syndrome have age-appropriate social behaviour, but some children do develop difficult behaviours which cause family stress and affect social and educational inclusion. Information on the types of behaviour which may cause concern is included and attention is drawn to the high incidence of sleep difficulties as they influence day time behaviour. Strategies for encouraging age-appropriate behaviour are discussed and ways of preventing and changing difficult behaviours are outlined.

An overview of the development of teenagers with Down syndrome (11-16 years)

Research studies demonstrate that young people with Down syndrome make significant progress in all areas of their development during their teenage years and into early adult life. For all young people, adolescence is a period of development which is characterised by a shift from dependence to independence. At 11 years, most young people are still largely supervised in the community and supported by parents in all aspects of their lives. By 18 years, most young people are quite independent in travelling, managing money, choosing friends and leisure interests, taking care of their personal daily needs and will be on the way to leaving the family home. This life period is also important for deciding on future occupation, life style and personal identity. It is also a period of significant physical, sexual and emotional development, when establishing close friendships, dating and partners become important. In this module it is argued that the physical, social and emotional needs of teenagers with Down syndrome are essentially the same as those of other teenagers and should be recognised as such. The priority for parents and teachers should be to support them through these changes with the goal of encouraging as much independence and personal control over their lives as possible. This is also important for developing their self esteem, personal identities and adjustment to the understanding of what having Down syndrome means for their adult lives. In addition, it is argued that teenagers with Down syndrome can continue to develop their basic skills in speech, language, literacy and numeracy and that teaching for these should continue through adolescence with age-appropriate adaptations to the content of teaching programmes.

An overview of the development of children with Down syndrome (5-11 years)

Children with Down syndrome usually make significant progress during their primary school years. In this module, the goals for their development are discussed in the context of the progress in social, academic and personal independence skills that is seen in typically developing children during the period from 5 to 11 years. It is argued that the goals for children with Down syndrome should be age-appropriate and therefore many of the goals should be the same as for other children, although the child with Down syndrome may not achieve quite the same levels of competence in each area. This age period begins with settling into full-time school and it is the start of increasing independence from the family and moving away from the high levels of individual support that preschool children receive, to being able to be part of a group and to cope in the larger social world of the school and community. There is consistent evidence that children with Down syndrome gain significantly from full inclusion in mainstream schools. In particular, they show significant gains in spoken language, reading, writing and arithmetic. These gains will enhance their adult lives - especially the ability to communicate more effectively. However, the special educational needs of the children should be met wherever they are receiving their education and the key needs and appropriate adaptations for teaching and learning are described. Children with Down syndrome will benefit from a partnership between parents, teachers and therapists and specific goals are provided for parents, teachers, speech and language therapists and physical therapists, based on the research into the childrens specific profile of needs and into effective interventions.