The development of adaptive skills in young people with Down syndrome

Abstract

Background: To help children with Down syndrome reach optimum levels of adaptive behaviour, caretakers need to know how and to what extent children with Down syndrome acquire adaptive skills.

Method: The adaptive levels of motor, daily living, communicative and social behavioural skills were determined in a group of 984 Dutch children with Down syndrome, aged between 0 and 12 years, and compared with the adaptive levels of typically developing children using a Dutch version of the Vineland Screener.

Results: Children with Down syndrome acquire their adaptive skills at a slower pace and reach their ceiling scores at about the age of 12 years, at a substantially lower level than a reference group of typically developing children.

Conclusions: Down children seem to acquire skills in a similar sequence and according to a similar trajectory. Development of adaptive skills varies greatly between participants with Down syndrome. For that reason, cohort studies on the development of individuals with Down syndrome over a prolonged period of time are needed.