Friday, 4 September 2015

Classic articles on literacy and numeracy

The archives of Down Syndrome Education International (DSE) are replete with information about the development of language, literacy and numeracy. This week, DSE  has kindly posted some classics on its Facebook page, which happens to coincide with our National Literacy and Numeracy Week, including these two:

A Reading and Language Intervention for Children with Down Syndrome
Image: DSE

Our Reading and Language Intervention for Children with Down Syndrome (RLI) is an evidence-based programme designed to teach reading and language skills to children with Down syndrome. RLI incorporates best practice in structured activities delivered in fast-paced daily teaching sessions. It was evaluated in a randomised controlled trial and found to improve rates of progress compared to ordinary teaching.


Number and arithmetic skills in children with Down syndrome
Sophie Brigstocke, Charles Hulme and Joanna Nye
Down Syndrome Research and Practice, July 2008
It is clear that arithmetic and number skills are areas of particular difficulty for individuals with Down syndrome. Studies of arithmetic development in typically developing children suggest that a pre-verbal “number sense” system and counting skills provide two critical foundations for the development of arithmetic. Studies of children with Down syndrome suggest that the development of both these foundational skills present difficulties for them, though these conclusions are based on relatively small samples of children. It would seem that further studies of arithmetic and number skills in children with Down syndrome, involving larger samples of children and broader ranges of measures, are badly needed ...

Search the DSE information pages for much more on literacy and numeracy.

DSE is hosting the 2015 Down Syndrome Research Forum, to be held at University College London (UCL) on 22 and 23 September.

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