Representation of Story Grammar in Educable Down Syndrome Persian-Speaking Students’ Narrative Discourse

Down syndrome is a genetic disorder which can be accompanied by some disorders such as cognitive, developmental, and linguistic disorders in most cases. One of the effective disorders in the developmental process and social life of the individuals with Down syndrome is represented in the level of narrative discourse. Narrative discourse is one of the skills that has a very vital role in the daily communications and even the educational and professional development. Since this level of skill needs to recall and use the cognitive and the linguistic skills simultaneously, its comprehension and production can be challenging for the individuals with Down syndrome. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate Persian-speaking educable Down syndrome students’ comprehension and production of narrative discourse based on the story grammar model.

In the current research, the story grammar representation in Persian-speaking educable Down syndrome students’ narrative discourse level was studied following Goldman and Varnhagen’s story grammar model. To this end, 20 educable Down syndrome students (10 girls and 10 boys) with the chronological age of 10 to 24 years (mental age of 10 to 12 years) and a control group consisting of 20 normal children (10 girls and 10 boys) with the chronological age of 10 to 12 years participated in the test of the comprehension and production of narrative discourse based on the story grammar. The collected data were first studied and described. Then, they were analysed using SPSS software, version 22, running One-Way ANOVA test. 

The findings showed that there was a significant difference between normal students and educable Down syndrome students in story grammar comprehension and production in such way that educable Down syndrome students’ performance in the comprehension and production of story grammar propositions was significantly (p < .05) weaker. Nevertheless, educable Down syndrome students comprehended and produced the end of the story, namely the last proposition, better than other propositions of the story. 

According to the results, it seems that the weak performance of educable Down syndrome students in the comprehension and production of story grammar is related to the cognitive and linguistic weaknesses.