SLHS 1150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: American Sign Language, Down Syndrome, Speech-Language Pathology
27 Nov 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Understanding a student with down syndrome when they are speaking can be difficult. This is due to low muscle tone, jaw movement difficulties, motor planning difficulties, and a high narrow palate. To understand how your students with down syndrome may feel, imagine speaking while your mouth is full. Upon evaluation, many students with down syndrome exhibit great differences between receptive (understanding) and expressive (spoken language production) language abilities. For this reason, their intelligence is often underestimated. It is important to remember that the way an individual who has down syndrome speaks is not a reflection of their intellectual ability. Recognize that situational factors can impact communication and classroom performance, e. g. , an impatient listener, anxiety, perceived pressure, embarrassment or lack of confidence. Use simple questions (5 wh and h), and allow extra response time. If your student uses american sign language (asl), learn basic signs and teach them to the class.
