Instability of Performance on Cognitive Tests in Infants and Young Children With Down's Syndrome

Stability of cognitive performance in assessment situations was investigated in a group of 18 children with Down's Syndrome (DS) aged 6 months to 4 years. Two widely used tests of early cognitive development were presented: the Mental Scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and a series of Piagetian object concept tasks. Both sets of tasks were presented in the same testing session, with testing repeated one to two weeks later. Both qualitative and quantitative aspects of performance were recorded. Even when overall scores were similar, patterns of pass/fails were very different in the two testing sessions. Successes showed poor stability over sessions with fails often occurring by default, the result of a refusal to engage fully in a particular task. This pattern of results suggests: (1) that single-session testing may not adequately assess cognitive status in DS children; (2) that the relationship between performance and competence may be unstable in such children, and (3) that "slow development" theories may not adequately describe cognitive development in young children with DS

Bayley Scales of Infant Development · Child development · Cognition · Cognitive development · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive test · Developmental psychology · Psychomotor learning · Session (web analytics) · Educational and Psychological Assessments · Language Development and Disorders · Psychology

• Evaluating performance on a bespoke maths game with children with Down syndrome

  Open Access•Jill Porter•Journal of Computer Assisted…•2022

  Add to list

• Checking the List

  Jonathan Rix•International Journal of Heritage…•2005

  Add to list