Developing Phonological Awareness Skills in Children with Down Syndrome

The response of children with Down syndrome (DS) to a program focusing on phonological awareness (PA) skills is reported. Seventeen children with DS were randomly assigned to the PA program or to an alternate program. The program involved individual twice weekly 30-minute sessions for 22 weeks. Rhyming and initial and final phoneme identification were targeted. A significant treatment effect for phoneme identification in final position was found with a large effect size. Phonological awareness skills are particularly challenging for children with DS. The results suggest that it is possible to teach phonological awareness skills to children with DS with a focused intervention program.