Motor and cognitive development of children with Down syndrome: The effect of acquisition of walking skills on their cognitive and language abilities

Abstract

Objective: This study investigated the relationship between motor and cognitive/language development in children with Down syndrome (DS). We also tested the hypothesis that acquisition of walking skills facilitates later cognitive/language development.

Methods: Participants were 156 children with DS who were less than 48 months old and had undergone a health checkup by medical doctors and received rehabilitation treatment between April 2013 and March 2017 in Yokohama, Japan. To assess their development, the Kyoto Scale of Psychological Development (KSPD) 2001 was used, which measures development in three subdomains: Posture-Motor (P-M), Cognitive-Adaptive (C-A), and Language-Social (L-S). To investigate the relationship between motor and cognitive/language development, partial correlation analyses were conducted that controlled for participants' age. To test the effect of achieving walking skills, regression analyses were conducted using only data from participants who took the KSPD at least twice and could not walk at the initial test.

Results: P-M developmental age (DA) was significantly and positively correlated with both C-A DA and L-S DA in children 1-3 years old. The relationship strengthened with increased age. Acquisition of walking skills had a significant positive effect on both the C-A DA and L-S DA at the second test when controlling for the C-A DA and L-S DA at the first test and age at the second test.

Conclusion: Motor development was correlated with both cognitive and language development in young children with DS. Results also suggested that achievement of walking could facilitate later cognitive/language development in children with DS.

Keywords: Cognitive development; Down syndrome; Language development; Motor development; Walking.