This is a link to a interesting article on development of reading and communication skills in children with Down Syndrome. The research being performed is related to a controlled study of 40 children who are participating in this program to develop reading and other skills. The study is quite interesting in that it follows the results I have experienced with my own daughter and the results other families I talk with are experiencing as well.
The research team is beginning working with the children at 2 years of age which is good, but we started working with our daughter from the day she was born by reading to her. In fact, I remember quite well how I was catching up some casual reading and spent an afternoon reading a Stephen King book to her when she was less than a year old.
I truly believe reading to your children as babies has a great impact on their ability to read and communicate appropriately. In Leah’s case, I believe she has strong reading and comprehensive skills because of how early we began reading to her. She was able to experience how reading different types of stories had a different feel and a different style of communicating. The tone I used when reading Stephen King to her was very different from when I read Dr. Seuss. Reading from soothing books such as “Goodnight Moon” deliver a very distinct tone while reading from something more character driven such as “Where the Wild Things Are“.
I think the most important thing is to really have fun with the reading. Even though the kids are a little older now and can read their own books, we still use character voices and stomp around the room like a monster or make noises with our mouths along with whatever is going on in the story. It doesn’t matter who is reading. Both of our girls are good readers and it is such a pleasure to have them read to us – or us read to them.
We now have a “short-round” (baby) at home. We had our third daughter in March which is why I don’t update my blog as much. We didn’t start out reading as much with her due to the chaos of life, but we are making it a priority now. It will be interesting to see if there is much of a differrence in her reading and communication development than the other girls since we got a later start with her.
Reading is so important to developing good and appropriate communication skills whether the child has Down Syndrome or is typically developing. There are so many good stories for kids and so many fun ways of telling them. To skip reading to your kids is skipping a really fun part of their development.
That’s my $1.98 worth. Time for espresso…
