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Presenter: Laney Madelyn McGoff

Faculty Sponsor: Jill Hoover

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences

Session: Poster Session 6, 4:15 PM - 5:00 PM, Auditorium, A22

ABSTRACT

Introduction: For neurotypically developing children, there is a robust literature linking children’s language skills to their executive functioning skills. In contrast, the research is significantly underdeveloped for children from clinical populations. The current study addresses this gap by examining parent-reported executive functions and their relationship with performance of standardized measures of language in two clinical populations of children: Down syndrome (DS) and Fragile X syndrome (FXS). The following research questions will be addressed: How do parents of children with DS or FXS rate their child’s executive function skills, and are those ratings related to their children’s language skills? Methodology: Participants include 21 9–17-year-olds with FXS, and 25 9–17-year-olds with DS. Participants completed a comprehensive battery of standardized language tests, and their parents completed questionnaires asking them to rate their child’s executive function skills (BRIEF-2 and Conners-3). Parent rating scales will be used to construct patterns of relative strengths or weaknesses in executive functions, and to determine if there are differences in parent ratings across FXS and DS. We will use regression analyses to identify whether parent ratings are significantly associated with performance on standardized tests of expressive and receptive language Conclusions: Regardless of the outcome of the analysis, the results will inform our understanding of the relationship between executive function and language skills. These results may serve as the foundation needed for future studies that could have direct implications for assessment or intervention for childhood language disorders.