Assessment of Down syndrome children: Mullen scales of early learning

Abstract

This study investigated one group of children with Down syndrome at two different time periods using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. All children were assessed between three and nine months of age and then again between eighteen and thirty months. The Mullen scales were ideally suited for use with this population because it possesses appropriate characteristics for assessing development in this population. Participants consisted of infants and toddlers selected from a pool of one hundred twenty-three children with Down syndrome under the age of three. All of the children in the study participated in developmental screenings through the Early Intervention Program at the Child Development Center, at St. Mary's Hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida. The data was archival and obtained between 1993 and 2000. The research was undertaken in order to compare how various therapies: physical, occupational and speech and language would affect developmental functioning as assessed by the Mullen scales. In addition, use of private insurance and mother's education level were examined to assess their impact on functioning. The results of this investigative study suggested that early intervention therapies with Down syndrome children do not always result in the same gains observed with normal populations. The children with Down syndrome in the present study did not experience long-term improvements in developmental functioning as increases in therapies occurred. Subjects whose mothers had higher education levels did not perform better than their peers and children with private insurance did not perform better than those without private insurance. The present findings may be related to the intervention techniques employed. Treatment interventions such as physical, occupational and speech and language therapy were based upon normal development. Children with Down syndrome do not acquire skills or approach learning in the same manner as there typically developing counterparts. Current intervention techniques fail to account for the inherent differences present in Down syndrome, which may explain why the more treatments these children received, the poorer their final scores were.