Development of communicative abilities in infants with Down syndrome after systematized training in gestural communication

Background: Gestural communication, understood as the use of non-verbal gestures before the word appears, is a strength in children with Down syndrome (DS).

Objective: To describe com munication development behaviors in children with DS, before and after gestural communication training, based on the "Signs, words and games" workshops of the Baby Signs® program.

Methods: Prospective study of children with DS between 18 and 22 months of cognitive age, who were trained in gestural communication according to the "Baby Signs®" methodology, evaluating communication skills through the MacArthur inventory adapted for children with DS (Communica tive Development Inventories, CDI-DS), analyzing the scores before and three months after the in tervention. The evaluated items were: Early comprehension, First sentences comprehension, Starting to speak, Vocabulary list, and Decontextualized language use (part 1) and total, early and late gestures (part 2).

Results: 21 children completed the workshops, with an average chronological age of 27.5 months and 19.8 months of cognitive age. 29% of the participants increased their scores in sentence comprehension, 62% in vocabulary production with gestures, 33% improved in vocabulary compre hension, 57% lost early gestures, and 43% increased late gestures production.

Conclusions: Gestural communication training favors the communication skills development in a group of children with DS, mainly in the initial understanding and gesture production. There is important inter-individual variability, therefore is necessary to consider child to child recommendations.