Review article
Reading skills in children with Down syndrome: A meta-analytic review

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Abstract

The authors examine the reading profile in children with Down syndrome by comparing the nonword decoding skills in children with Down syndrome and typically developing children matched for word recognition level. Journal articles published before 04.05.2010 were identified by using the keyword Down* cross-referenced to ‘reading’, ‘literacy’, ‘decoding’, and ‘reading comprehension’ were selected. A total of eight papers met the criteria for inclusion. Each study was reviewed and coded on both inclusion criteria and coding protocol before the analysis was performed. Children with Down syndrome had equivalent nonword decoding skills to typically developing children matched for word recognition level, but showed deficits on measures of two important underlying skills, vocabulary and phonological awareness. Differences in vocabulary, but not phonological awareness, were predictive of differences in nonword decoding skills. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Highlights

► A meta-analysis of reading skills in children with Down syndrome is presented. ► We examine the reading profile of children with Down syndrome. ► A control group of typically developing children matched for level of word recognition is included. ► The groups had similar level of nonword reading skills. ► Vocabulary, but not phonological awareness is reliably predictors of reading skills.

Section snippets

Reading skills in children with Down syndrome: A meta-analytic review

Learning to read is critical for educational success and effective independent living. There are limited data on reading abilities among children with Down syndrome, and the present study is the first meta-analytic review to investigate reading skills in children with this diagnosis. The aim of the review is to examine the profile of reading skills in children with Down syndrome by looking at strengths and weaknesses compared with those of typically developing children matched on word

Inclusion criteria

We used the following criteria to select studies for inclusion in the meta-analysis:

  • 1.

    We only included studies that compare children and adolescents with Down syndrome to typically developing children matched on level of word recognition. Thus, we excluded studies using a reading comprehension measure or a mix of nonword decoding and word recognition as the initial matching variable.

  • 2.

    Children and adolescents with Down syndrome had to be monolingual and had no additional specified diagnosis.

Results

The searches yielded a total of 781 publications, and the final set of unique studies after excluding duplicates was 434. All abstracts were reviewed according to the inclusion criteria and, finally, after coding all the data and removing duplicates, a total of eight papers met the criteria for inclusion. Characteristics of the included studies are presented in Table A1 in the Appendix.

The main reason for excluding an empirical study was that the study did not include a comparison group of

Discussion

The purpose of this meta-analytic review was to examine the profile of reading skills in children with Down syndrome by comparing nonword decoding skills in this group with those seen in typically developing children with the same level of word recognition ability. A secondary aim was to examine the role of vocabulary and phonological awareness as predictors of variance in learning to read. There were no significant differences in nonword decoding skills between the two groups (g = −0.63).

Summary and conclusions

The results of the present meta-analysis are generally in line with earlier research suggesting that decoding skills are a relative strength in children with Down syndrome, and adding that the limited number of studies in this area means that more research is needed. The role of vocabulary knowledge in learning to decode words has also been highlighted. Children with Down syndrome perform in line with typically developing children at the same word recognition level on measures of nonword

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    References marked with an asterisk indicate studies included in the meta-analysis.

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