Jędrzej Niemczyk

Should children with Down Syndrome learn/acquire an additional language? (incl.

bilingualism)
Down Syndrome is a disorder caused most commonly by the trisomy of the chromosome 21,
although there are some other causes of the occurring disorder. Researchers also list
Mosaicism, partial trisomy or translocation of the chromosome 21. DS is associated with a
particular cognitive development and profile. Usually, the cognitive impairment demonstrates
in intellectual disability, significantly different receptive and language production levels,
more developed spatial memory than verbal and more advanced global processing than local.
Moreover, researchers find difficulties in language learning because of the abovementioned
symptoms, precisely grammar is an area which is particularly influenced. What is commonly
known is that reading is one of the most important language skills and here children with DS
experience difficulties. Considering these impairments precisely in language learning one may
assume that learning languages for children with DS will be extremely difficult and the
progress will be slow or non-existent in some cases because the individual differences in
children with DS are so immense. Despite these characteristics of children with DS it is
possible for them to learn their native language or even become multilingual.
There is a number of cases reports of DS children being bilingual. First ever report
presented was the Italian origin 23-year-old woman, who could speak Italian, English and
French at different levels of performance. She could speak Italian, since it was her L1 and she
learnt English and French. She could take part in conversations in English easily, although she
was less proficient in French. After her skills examination it was visible that her cognitive
traits typically associated with DS are significantly at a better level than in usual cases. Her
phonological short-term memory skills are at the level of a neurotypical person her age, which
is why she could acquire languages more easily. Her reading skills were at a very good level
but rather slow. What worries researchers in learning languages by people in DS is that the
development of the L1 may be impaired by other languages they learn but in this case, it did
not cause any issues (Vallar & Papagano, 1993). Furthermore, there was a reported case of
children with DS at the age of 6 who were exposed to the second language, whereas their first
language was English. As it was expected the impairments associated with DS played a role
in their cognitive development and their language skills, but the children were compared to
the group of children at the same age and similar language learning stage, there was no found
difference and influence on their L1 in both groups of children. In addition, there was a case
of a girl who was able to speak Italian and a complicated Venetian dialect very easily and the
only downside was the pace of her production. As the educator was working with her, it was
visible that the girl was more receptive than focused on production, that she had a particular
capacity for being exposed to language and receiving the good language models that is why
she was able to acquire bot Italian and this dialect.
All these cases prove that learning additional language for people or children with DS
is not an issue if conveyed properly as with any other neurotypical student or not. Children
who are exposed to good language models, who are extensively surrounded by the language
will learn it to an extent or more. These cases provide us with knowledge that the individual
differences among learners are particular and should be taken into consideration at all times.
What is vital here is that there are no downsides in carrying children with DS in learning L2
or even L3, since they may be able to understand it, produce, partake in conversations and
learn much more from their environment. Their L1 will not be negatively influenced and it
will only allow them to communicate with their peers in more ways possible. Even though DS
brings particular impairments to the production level and phonemic memory it is still possible
for learners with special needs to be an active member of their working group and owing to
their differences in perception of the world they may bring to the group much more their
educators predicted.