The Bottom Line
Edited by Joanne E. Roberts, Robin S. Chapman, and Steven F. Warren; 305 pages. From the back of the book: "This definitive volume is key to supporting the communicative competence of people with Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome at every stage of life."
A gathering of research studies, this "definitive volume" is clearly not meant for parents, nor makes any claim to be so. Still, some parents (like me) do insist on cracking scholarly tomes now and then, and this one's borderline accessible. If you live and breathe DS or FXS, you may well find information to make the effort useful.
Pros
- Considers the specific speech and language issues of two genetic disorders
- Provides good overview of research for a range of language considerations
- Text is technical, but still decipherable
- Most chapters include a section on parent involvement
- Useful reference for strategizing interventions
Cons
- Most of those interventions will have to be done by professionals -- this is no "how to" for parents
- Much of this text can only be fully understood by professionals
- Has much less to do with FXS than DS, since there's so much more research on the latter
Description
- Section I: Identification and Development in Down Syndrome and Fragile X Syndrome
- Chapter 1: Etiology, Diagnosis, and Development in DS
Chapter 2: Etiology, Diagnosis, and Development in FXS - Section II: Speech and Language Profiles in DS and FXS: Assessment and Intervention Implications
- Chapter 3: Communication and Language Development in Infants and Toddlers
- Chapter 4: Language of Preschool/School-Age Children
Chapter 5: Language Profiles of Adolescents/Young Adults - Chapter 6: Phonological Characteristics
Section III: Interventions for Individuals with DS and FXS - Chapter 7: Prelinguistic and Early Language Interventions
Chapter 8: Intervention to Encourage Complex Language Use - Chapter 9: Increasing Speech Intelligibility
Chapter 10: Increasing Literacy Learning - Chapter 11: Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Chapter 12: Family Well-Being - Appendix: Professional Organizations
Index
Guide Review - Book Review: Speech & Language Development & Intervention in DS and FXS
There are plenty of general books on speech and language development in children with special needs -- you can find some here. Many of them are parent friendly and full of specific recommendations on what to do in your general situation.
Those books are terrific, but sometimes you want a little more of a challenge. Something specific to your child's particular disability. Something that delves into research and tries to present the state of serious knowledge. The sort of thing your child's speech therapist would read, or should be reading and maybe is not, which you would like to straighten out, pronto.
And so you reach for something like this book, if your child's particular disability is Down syndrome or Fragile X, and you hope for the best. And somewhere along the way, it strikes you as ironic that a book about getting clear and productive speech from children is so full of fancy words and alphabet soup.
Well, you asked for it, didn't you? And in fact, as professional texts go, this one is less awful than many. My recommendation, after slogging through the whole heavily referenced thing, is to start with section three; it has the most useful information for parents, the least jargon, and it references most of what's gone before, which you can certainly seek out as needed.
You'll find out some interesting things about how children with these syndromes learn language and learn it differently from other children and each other. You'll find some suggestions for implementing at home, and some observations about what you might be doing wrong.
Take what you can from it, and then pass it on to your child's speech therapist. Maybe you can get some sort of Cliff's Notes version out of the deal.
