FLUENCY PROFILES OF DUTCH-SPEAKING CHILDREN WITH DOWN SYNDROME: DISTRIBUTION OF DISFLUENCIES ACROSS LINGUISTIC CONTEXT

Abstract

This study examined fluency profiles in Dutch-speaking children with Down syndrome (DS), ages 9 – 15, who were identified as disfluent. The study focused on stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs), linguistic context, and relationships with language and cognitive measures. Speech samples from 15 children were analyzed using CLAN/TalkBank tools.

In this sample, SLDs occurred at significantly higher rates on function words than on content words, indicating a non-random distribution and highlighting word class as a useful window into fluency patterns in children with DS. No significant differences in SLD rate or mean length of utterance (MLU) were observed across picture description and conversational tasks. Additionally, no significant associations were found between SLD frequency and language measures (MLU, vocabulary diversity) or cognitive ability (IQ). Exploratory analysis of SLD subtypes revealed a predominance of part-word repetitions, with subtype distributions broadly consistent with patterns reported in Dutch-speaking children who stutter without DS.

These findings contribute to the limited literature on fluency in children with DS by providing a detailed and reproducible characterization of SLD patterns within a Dutch-speaking sample. Results highlight the importance of considering linguistic context in fluency analyses and support a multidimensional approach to assessment. Given the small sample size, findings should be interpreted cautiously, and further research with larger samples is needed to clarify relationships between fluency, language, and cognition in this population.