Article Review: Down Syndrome and Parental Depression
Down syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects the intellectual ability of a child, specifically in the development of speech. There is, however, a wide range in grading how well children with down syndrome can be able to express themselves. The variability is attributed to parental depression, among other factors between both parents and children. This review is a report based on statistics obtained from data collected from children with down syndrome on their communication development and parental depression. The results of the research showed that children with parents who were depressed recorded a higher tendency in their growth as compared to children who have down syndrome and their parents have stable mental health.
According to the article, children with down syndrome display a delay in expressive speech as compared to infants developing typically. The rate of delay increases as the complexity of suggestive language increases. Expressive language is the most negatively impacted aspect of child growth that is associated with down syndrome by parents who are depressed.
A study was conducted, and it included children below the age of two, together with their parents. Thirty-eight children were selected from a population of one hundred and fifteen children chosen randomly. Children with both parents or one parent who recorded depression were matched with children whose parents did not register depression. The factors that were matched in the children included ethnicity, age, gender, age of their parents, a headcount of adults in their households, educational level of parents, and their occupation. The parents filed a questionnaire in the determination of whether they had depression or not.
They also filled the MacArthur –Bates Communicative Development Inventory to provide information on language delay in children with down syndrome (D’Souza et al.,). The Mullen Scale of Early Learning was also administered to assess gross motor, fine motor, visual reception, receptive language, and expressive language. Cross-sectional development trajectory analysis was set up in the children with parents who reported depression and those whose parents had no history of depression to determine where the increase in age relates to expressive vocabulary
The findings of this article showed that there is a relationship between parental development and the slow rate of expressive language in children with down syndrome below the age of five years. Parents with depression present a risk to their children with down syndrome who may develop more slowly as compared to parents with no depression. Parents with depression may find it hard to attend to the needs of their particular children due to factors associated with depression, such as fatigue and poor concentration. Research also reveals that depressed parents express hostility towards their children during their expressive language interactions.
It is, however important to note that sometimes the difficulty in children with down syndrome expressiveness may be difficult due to inherited genes and not necessarily a result of parental depression. There was a bias of parents with depression reporting more negatively on their children in the report, and the results that are obtained from this study contain some biasness. The samples were also too small and did not give an accurate representation of the entire population. It is therefore essential that further studies are conducted to obtain detailed information on depression and down syndrome as well as other factors that contribute to the severity of depression on the parent impacts on children with down syndrome.
Reference
D’Souza, H., Lathan, A., Karmiloff-Smith, A., & Mareschal, D. (2020). Down syndrome and parental depression: A double hit on early expressive language development. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 100, 103613.