Family life influence on the communicative performance of children with Down syndrome

PURPOSE: to investigate the aspects of family life that influence communicative performance of children with Down syndrome. METHODS: application of the "Features of the Family Environment" questionnaire and pragmatic analysis of children with DS communication. 30 children of both genders, ranging from five to 10 years old, have partaken this research. Spearman's rank order correlation was applied. The analyses were performed using the SPSS' 10.0 version, and in all of them, a significance level of 5% was adopted. RESULTS: correlation between the items of the questionnaire and pragmatic analysis results regarding communicative means and communicative function was found to exist. CONCLUSION: it is necessary to take family life aspects that influence the communicative performance of children with DS into consideration.