Development of communicative abilities in infants with Down syndrome after systematized training in gestural communication

Introduction: Gestural communication, understood as the use of non-verbal gestures before the word appears, is a strength in children with Down syndrome (DS). Objective: To describe communication development behaviors in children with DS, before and after gestural communication training, based on the "Signs, words and games" workshops of the Baby Signs (R) program. Subjects and Method: Prospective study of children with DS between 18 and 22 months of cognitive age, who were trained in gestural communication according to the "Baby Signs (R)" methodology, evaluating communication skills through the MacArthur inventory adapted for children with DS (Communicative Development Inventories, CDI-DS), analyzing the scores before and three months after the intervention. The evaluated items were: Early comprehension, First sentences comprehension, Starting to speak, Vocabulary list, and Decontextualized language use (part 1) and total, early and late gestures (part 2). Results: 21 children completed the workshops, with an average chronological age of 27.5 months and 19.8 months of cognitive age. 29% of the participants increased their scores in sentence comprehension, 62% in vocabulary production with gestures, 33% improved in vocabulary comprehension, 57% lost early gestures, and 43% increased late gestures production. Conclusions: Gestural communication training favors the communication skills development in a group of children with DS, mainly in the initial understanding and gesture production. There is important inter-individual variability, therefore is necessary to consider child to child recommendations.