Roger Brown and colleagues conducted a study on children with down’s syndrome. They specifically looked at the development of morphemes and ages in which children acquired their language. Three children from middle class American families were selected for this research. The children were examined for two years. Brown concluded that between the ages of two and four children include many different morphemes in their speech. In all three children, there was a similarity in which these morphemes occurred. He studied the fourteen morphemes in which they appeared. The first being the ing affix on verbs. The second being the preposition on and the third is the preposition in. Fourth is the plural form of words, such as dogs. Fifth is the irregular past tense of verbs. Sixth is the possessive form of nouns, seventh is the form of be, and eighth is articles. Ninth is past tense verbs, tenth is third person present tense, and eleventh is the irregular first person present tense verbs. Twelfth is another form of be, thirteenth is the use of abbreviations where possible, and the fourteenth is using abbreviations for the form of be.
The results of this investigation were somewhat predictable. The first six of the morphemes were acquired by the children with down’s syndrome at a much later date. Those children were also producing their first ten words at a later age. Typically, children with down’s syndrome are about twelve months behind children without a retardation. Of the morphemes, the seventh, tenth, and twelfth, were not ever acquired by the children with down’s syndrome. Two out of those three involve the forms of be. These children might not understand the form of be because of how their mother’s speak to them. Mothers tend to speak more directly to children and not really give them the chance to pick up on the different forms. Not acquiring the morphemes as early in life will have a great affect on the children.This study informed us of how children with a retardation learn grammar at a much slower pace.
Three children seems to be an awful small sampling in a study prepared for publication. One would expect children with Down's Syndrome to acquire some morphemes at a later date, but it is difficult to validate any findings when one child's morpheme acquisition can shift results 33 percent. If Brown encounters a fourth child with Down's Syndrome who understands the form of be, is the study flawed or were the conclusions prematurely drawn?
ReplyDeleteChildren with Down's Syndrome do not understand the form of be.
Children with Down's Syndrome have difficulty understanding the form of be.
Those statements have two very different meanings. Brown needs to expand his sampling before coming to any conclusions about his study.
I completely agree with Mike's post. This study seems incomplete and definitely not credible. My mother works with disabled and there are many different levels of down syndrom and retardation. Does this study compensate for every individual level? Does this study differentiate between poverty levels and parent involvement? These are extremely important factors to address in this study before it can be even close to remotely credible.
ReplyDeleteThere is no way that accurate results can be collected from studying only three young Down syndrome children. The study was also inaccurate as it did not include families of lower-class or higher-class. A family of higher-class often has more opportunities, privileges, and money, therefore, a Down syndrome child that came from a wealthy family could potentially progress faster if his or her parents paid someone for extra help and assistance with language development skills. Also, there are completely different levels of Down syndrome. Some Down syndrome people speak relatively well and can function on their own. When I was younger, I danced with a girl who had Down syndrome. I could usually understand everything that she said, and eventually, she grew up to work at a restaurant where she interacted with people and brought food out to them. On the other hand, there are Down syndrome people who cannot speak well or function on their own. Finally, I feel as though the study points to the obvious. Down syndrome children are never going to be at the same pace of a normal child, as they usually lag twelve months behind on average with language development.
ReplyDeleteI, of course, agree with everyone else so far. Three children are not enough to complete an accurate study of this magnitude. Down's children, as with any other form of retardation, can have this disorder occuring on many different levels. As we learned in my EDUC 308 class, they can occur on leves from "Highly educable" to "Severely Mentally Disabled." While the language development issues may certainly be the case with these three children, we can by no means gather an accurate study with such a small sampling of children, especially with the levels of mental retardation that are able to be diagnosed.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with everyone. This article is definitely not a reliable source of information. In order to get credible and reliable sources for any kind of study, three people is not nearly enough. I also agree with Samantha on the question of whether all levels were tested. There are many people with Down's Syndrome that function at a higher level than others. Studying only three children won't get accurate test results for individual skill level. The idea behind the article was ok, but the information and study results made it hard to agree with or even like.
ReplyDeleteYeah, not that I'm an expert in what makes a good study, but when I read that there were only three subjects used, that sort of set an alarm off for me. I've seen many different levels of retardation and down syndrome. Some students with these challenges can pick up certain grammar rules. It just depends on their level of functioning.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone about the sampling size of the study not being large enough. I also agree with Zach in the fact that there are different levels of retardation and this study seemed not to be very clear on the different levels of retardation these three children had. That would help the study be more refined and allow the results to speak for themselves instead of us questioning the how experiment.
ReplyDeleteThree children is a small group to conclude results for all children with Down's Syndrome. I am not sure if this study has been tested on a wider range of groups. Also the fact that only middle class families were chosen to be in the study could have skewed results. Wealthy families could have better professionals to help minimize speech problems. However, less well to do families would not be able to afford such care, and they should be prone to more speech problems. I feel that there are significant problems in this study that need to be addressed before the results can be considered hard evidence. Futhermore, I was under the impression that Down's Syndrome had different levels. Does the experiment want us to assume these children have the same level of Down's Syndrome? I feel this study was not set up with that understanding in mind.
ReplyDeleteIf these results are accurate of all children with Down's Syndrome then it is peculiar. Now that the problems are addressed in people who suffer from Down's Syndrome, I am interested in learning if those problems in speech can be fixed or if it is physical limitation.
I also agree with what everyone is saying. I do not think this particular study gives an accurate description of how children with down's syndrome develop. The study needs to include more children of all different types of retardation and socioeconomic class.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article I don't think that you can base the findings or results based off three children. I feel there should have been more in-depth analysis, because there are different forms of down syndrome, and it comes in different stages. There are some children with different diseases, and have down syndrome, but develop faster in skills than children that are similar to the.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do agree with the rest of the class that you cannot effectively gauge viable results off a sampling so small, I think if the researcher broadened his or her scope and collected that data from a range of different Down's Syndrome children that this would be an interesting subject matter to study. Do Down's Syndrome children have no understanding of the form of be? Why is that? Does a mother speaking to her child in a specific manner really skew their understanding of language that much? We can't know the answers to these questions without a credible case report, however.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with what the class is saying. I am also a psychology major and from the looks of it; there is no accurate measurement of how these kins were tested and even a reason for why they were tested on those samples. I do however, find the data to be interesting because I personally have not done any research on kinds with down syndrome and never thought about how they acquire language differently.
ReplyDeleteThere should have been a better way to measure and even define their findings and possibly have better data to compare to.
Three subjects is undoubtedly too small of a sample to base research on. There needs to be more subjects and more time put into this study before it is regarded as the truth. The material in the research, however, was pretty interesting. It does make sense that it would be more difficult for children with Down's Syndrome to acquire language slower.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that research shouldn't be based on just three children. The sample is entirely too small to make an accurate analysis such as this one. They also should have tested children of different socio-economic statuses and children of different forms of disabilities. The small sample group poses many questions about the results.
ReplyDeleteI definately agree 3 samples are absolutely not enough to gather any type of data as far as children with Down's Syndrome. There are many more children out there than to limit your studies on a merely small three. The article didn't keep my attention mainly because the experiment wasn't well put together. This only makes me have more questions and study more about it so I can be rightly informed about this topic.
ReplyDeleteThis just seems like this test it is really hard to test all about these children with only 3 children. i feel as though more test should be more true testing to make a better result. I have seen children with these kind of troubles and I can see that they sometimes can learn just as well. So there needs to be more research
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