Narrative language and fluency in down syndrome: a review

Down’s syndrome is a condition in which individuals have intellectual impairment and oral language disorders. Speech disfluency is present during both spontaneous conversations as in productions of directed oral narratives. This study aimed to review the published literature between 2002 and 2012 in eletronic databases on disfluency and narrative in individuals with Down syndrome. There were 17 articles and eight were selected according to the criteria of inclusion and exclusion. Two of these articles specifically discoursed on dysfluency in Down’s syndrome and the other six on the narrative in this population. Intellectual disability is part of the phenotype of individuals with DS and, as a result of the intellectual impairment, losses occur on the acquisition and development of language. Specific studies about, mainly on fluency/disfluency, and the performance on a task of narrative and, are still scarce and inconclusive. Disfluency doesn’t appear in most descriptions of the language phenotype of individuals with this condition, which would deserve additional clinical studies.