Participation in social skills therapy (SST) facilitates cognitive functioning in children with developmental disabilities. The present pilot study examined whether participation in SST was associated with enhanced encoding and 1-month delayed recall in children with Down syndrome (DS). Children were presented with novel three-step event sequences in an elicited imitation procedure. Immediate imitation was permitted as an index of encoding; long-term memory was assessed 1 month later. Parents completed questionnaires inquiring about children’s participation in SST. Participation in SST was associated with enhanced encoding of temporal order information and 1-month delayed recall of individual target actions. In addition, encoding mediated the relation between group and 1-month delayed recall. The conducted research indicates that involvement in SST may be beneficial for children with DS despite their noted strengths in imitation and social learning. As such, additional experimental work is warranted to determine causality.
AbbedutoL.PavettoM.KesinE.WeissmanM. D.’KaradottirS.O‘BrienA.CawthonS. (2001). The linguistic and cognitive profile of Down syndrome: Evidence from a comparison with fragile X syndrome. Down Syndrome: Research and Practice, 7, 9-15.
2.
BauerP. J.DeBoerT.LukowskiA. F. (2007). In the language of multiple memory systems: Defining and describing developments in long-term declarative memory (pp. 240-270). In OakesL. M.BauerP. J. (Eds.), Short- and long-term memory in infancy and early childhood: Taking the first steps towards remembering. New York: Oxford University Press.
3.
BauerP. J.LukowskiA. F. (2010). The memory is in the details: Relations between memory for the specific features of events and long-term recall during infancy. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 107, 1-14.
4.
BauerP .J.WennerJ. A.DropikP. L.WewerkaS. S. (2000.) Parameters of remembering and forgetting in the transition from infancy to early childhood. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 65, 1-204.
5.
BauerP. J.WiebeS. A.WatersJ. M.BangstonS. K. (2001). Reexposure breeds recall: Effects of experience on 9-month-olds’ ordered recall. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 80, 174-200.
6.
BayleyN. (2006). Bayley scales of infant and toddler development-III. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt Assessment.
7.
CappadociaM. C.WeissJ. A. (2011). Review of social skills training groups for youth with Asperger syndrome and high functioning autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5, 70-78.
ConnollyB.MorganS.RussellF. F.RichardsonB. (1980). Early intervention with Down syndrome children: Follow-up report. Physical Therapy, 60, 1405-1408.
10.
ConnollyB. H.MorganS. B.RussellF. F.FullitonW. L. (1993). A longitudinal study of children with Down syndrome who experienced early intervention programming. Physical Therapy, 73, 170-179.
11.
DykensE. M.HodappR. M. (2001). Research in mental retardation: Toward an etiologic approach. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines, 42, 49-71.
12.
EichenbaumH. (2004). Hippocampus: Cognitive processes and neural representations that underlie declarative memory. Neuron, 44, 109-120.
13.
FeeleyK. M.JonesE. A.BlackburnC.BauerS. (2011). Advancing imitation and requesting skills in toddlers with Down syndrome. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 32, 2415-2430.
14.
FivushR.FromhoffF. A. (1988). Style and structure in mother-child conversations about the past. Discourse Processes, 11, 337-355.
15.
HayesA. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
16.
HeimannM.LabergK. E.NordoenB. (2006). Imitative interaction increases social interest and elicited imitation in non-verbal children with autism. Infant and Child Development, 15, 297-309.
17.
HwangB.HughesC. (2000). The effects of social interactive training on early social communicative skills of children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 30, 331-343.
18.
LawsG.BishopD. V. M. (2003). The comparison of language abilities in adolescents with Down syndrome and children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 1324-1339.
19.
LibbyS.PowellS.MesserD.JordanR. (1997). Imitation of pretend play acts by children with autism and Down syndrome. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 27, 365-383.
20.
LukowskiA. F.MilojevichH. M. (2013). Sleeping like a baby: Examining relations between habitual infant sleep, recall memory, and generalization across cues at 10 months. Infant Behavior & Development, 36, 369-376.
21.
LukowskiA. F.MilojevichH. M. (2016). Examining recall memory in infancy and early childhood using the elicited imitation paradigm. Journal of Visualized Experiments, 110, Article e53347.
22.
LukowskiA. F.MilojevichH. M. (2017). Sleep problems and temperament in young children with Down syndrome and typically developing controls. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 61, 221-232.
23.
LukowskiA. F.PhungJ. N.MilojevichH. M. (2015). Language facilitates event memory in early childhood: Child comprehension, adult-provided linguistic support and delayed recall at 16 months. Memory, 23, 848-863.
24.
LukowskiA. F.SloneckerE. M.MilojevichH. M. (2019). Sleep problems and recall memory in children with Down syndrome and typically developing controls. Manuscript submitted for publication.
25.
LukowskiA. F.WiebeS. A.BauerP. J. (2009). Going beyond the specifics: Generalization of single actions, but not temporal order, at 9 months. Infant Behavior & Development, 32, 331-335.
26.
LukowskiA. F.WiebeS. A.HaightJ. C.DeboerT.NelsonC. A.BauerP. J. (2005). Forming a stable memory representation in the first year of life: Why imitation is more than child’s play. Developmental Science, 8, 279-298.
27.
LyA. R. (2013). It’s all in the family: Marital and coparenting quality in families of children with and without autism spectrum disorders (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Information and Learning
28.
MilojevichH. M.LukowskiA. F. (2016). Recall memory in children with Down syndrome and typically developing peers matched on developmental age. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 60, 89-100.
OzonoffS.MillerJ. N. (1995). Teaching theory of mind: A new approach to social skills training for individuals with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 25, 415-433.
31.
PhungJ. N.MilojevichH. M.LukowskiA. F. (2014). Adult language use and infant comprehension of English: Associations with encoding and generalization across cues at 20 months. Infant Behavior & Development, 37, 465-479.
32.
RastM.MeltzoffA. N. (1995). Memory and representation in young children with Down syndrome: Exploring deferred imitation and object permanence. Development and Psychopathology, 7, 393-407.
33.
RobertsL. V.RichmondJ. L. (2015). Preschoolers with Down syndrome do not yet show the learning and memory impairments seen in adults with Down syndrome. Developmental Science, 3, 404-419.
34.
RosenthalR.RosnowR. L. (1984). Essentials of behavioral research: Methods and data analysis. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
35.
SelikowitzM. (1997). Down syndrome: The facts (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
36.
WennerJ. A.BauerP. J. (1999). Bringing order to the arbitrary: One to two-year-olds’ recall of event sequences. Infant Behavior & Development, 22, 585-590.
37.
WrightI.LewisV.CollisG. M. (2006). Imitation and representational development in young children with Down syndrome. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 429-450.
