Down's Syndrome

Congratulations on your positive thinking in taking on this child as a student.

No experience swith Down’s, but here are some ideas I’ve used with other handicapped kids, and an offer:

I have found a source for my beloved Ladybird books and would be happy to share a beginner’s set with you at my cost.
These would be most suitable for a Down’s Syndrome child as they are home-and-family based for the first several books, consistent in characters and style, and go at a nice easy pace with tons of repetition of the same vocabulary in different settings. (Books 1 and 2 aimed at four-year-olds in the original program, and so nice and easy for a good positive introduction to reading).

I would still use a good phonics program (still swear by Scholar’s Choice Check and Double-Check) but I suspect that you will have to go very very gradually with the phonics. Most kids can do Book 1 and a large part of Book 2 in Grade 1, doing one or two pages a day; with a Down’s Syndrome child I would start by planning to do a page in three or four days (a good system is to laminate the pages with clear Mac-Tac and use erasable overhead markers; then you can go over each page several times until you get it right) and I would expect to spend two years finishing Book 1. Well, if you didn’t start, in two years the kid still wouldn’t be reading, so that’s real progress and a goal to aim for. Another method I often find useful is to use two good series at once; do the initial consonants in one series, and then go back and do initial consonants in the other. You are making progress, moving forward in each book, but getting the extra repetition needed.

For writing, get markers, never pencils or cheap ballpoints, so the child does not have to press down as well as forming the letters. Encourage forming letters without the pen leaving the page except for f, i, j, k, t, x (sort of like the italic style sometimes taught, but without any joining strokes or “tails” — plain print). A single stroke is much easier than trying to line up “ball and stick”. Start writing large, one word to a page of paper, and work on fluid flow and letter knowledge before worrying about lines, size, or style. You may have to hold the child’s hand and shape the moves for letter formation at first. Once the *lower-case* (not capitals; lower-case is 95% or more of any running text) alphabet is down recognizably, then move to the extra-large-lined primer paper, but don’t rush it.

Good luck, and do ask me if you want a beginning set of readers.

Hi momo…

There is a wonderful book that I have used as a starting place for several students with Down’s called “Teaching Reading to Children with Down’s Syndrome” by Patricia Logan Oelwein. It is published by Woodbine House, and is part of a series called Topics in Down’s Syndrome. I think I got my copy at Barnes and Noble. It is pretty complete and has a chapter with reproducible materials.

Robin

Phono-Graphix is the recommended scheme for teaching reading to children with Down’s Syndrome in the UK. The website is http://www.dsrf.co.uk.

I have taught many mentally challenged children using Phono-Graphix. I think the reason that it works so well is that there aren’t any rules and abstractions. Many of the MR children want to please so much that they learn faster to read using PG than my LD students, with all of their behaviors. Remember, being able to read has little to do with the IQ. Of course, once you get down to the 50’s and below IQ, they may be able to decode, but the comprehension piece won’t be there. I taught a ninth grade boy to read before we knew that he probably has the fragile X syndrome. He was at a normal IQ of 100 as a child but now it is 55. He can decode words, but his short term memory is so poor that when he is decoding a MS word, he totally forgets the first chunk. He also has poor word retrieval. It is such a sad case. I feel so bad for the family, and I am their advocate.

DS kids because of their genetics suffer from severe auditory processing/tonal deficits, visual deficits and sensory integration issues. Many of these are because of the nature/disruption of their auditory sensory channels(for ex. their narrow eustacian tubes promote chronic ear infections/fluid -that cause ramifications to vestibular functions, occular etc.) They have very poor digit spans (at 2yr old level or less), which measure short term memory/sequential memory abilities.

NACD parents of DS kids have their children on alot of wholistic diets to promote overall health. They do ALOT of sequencing activities to get their sequential memory abilities at a higher level. Until their digit spans get higher, they do alot of whole word flashes/input to get child started on reading. They do auditory tonal training and other activities to promote ‘language’.

NACD likes to see your digit span at a 6 before they introduce ‘phonics’ - as phonics uses your auditory senses, they want to see this area strengthened. I found that PG/reading reflex worked with my dd when her digit span was at a 4/5 (at level 3 she could not remember the sound/symbol relationship for the life of her). I think it’s because PG teaches the child to ‘chunk’ and you get the blending and segmenting practice needed for the phonological deficits.

Many of NACD DS kids who had been on program at young age are reading on grade level(or above) by the time they enter Kindergarten and 1st grade.

Greetings Victoria, Robin, Rita, Shay and Dea,

Thanks so much for the excellent input and suggestions. Definitely a big help!

Blessings, momo

I have a question of my own regarding the issue. Children with moderate mental retardation have I.Q. scores from 35 or 40 to 50. Now, suppose a child with an I.Q. of, say, 45, is in elementary school. I realize that exact outcomes vary from child to child, but as a rule, how much time and effort would it take to teach that child to read, what program would be necessary, and what reading level could he expect to attain?

Yours truly,
Kathy G.

The following is a very very very rough estimate.

A person with IQ 45 to 50 would reach, very roughly, the academic/reasoning ability of an eight- to ten-year-old at adulthood. He/she would be able to reach fourth or fith grade reading level if continued support is given through high school.

This is GOOD. I have at present a student in a Driver’s Education class who is not officially handicapped — just totally lost by the school system — age 29, and working at third or fourth grade reading level. She manages a family with three children, works at an outside job, finds her way around, and is learning to drive.
Not wearing my reading teacher hat in this very limited-time class, I helped her on the quizzes and sent copies home for her to memorize for the final.
She demonstrates clearly that Grade 4 or 5 is definitely enough to work productively in the world.

I would assume that the best method of teaching would go slowly, maybe half the speed of the standard program, and would involve intensive repetition.Not my field of expertise so I’ll leave it there for others more experienced to add on.

Just to clarify a few things:

An IQ of 40 is not in the moderate range for most ages. It’s pretty low.

IQ score alone cannot tell you the mental age. Mental age is factored from IQ and chronological age in years and months. This is normed. So one can’t simply say that a 40 means an eight year old mental age. The tests don’t work that way.

You can expect to achieve a reading score equal to or slightly higher than mental age.

How long it takes to teach a child to read is not just a factor of IQ. The child may have perfect phonological processing scores, or by severely dyslexic. The full range of abilities apply along side intelligence, not as a result of it.