Sue Buckley

Bio: Sue Buckley is an academic researcher from University of Portsmouth. The author has contributed to research in topics: Reading (process) & Language development. The author has an hindex of 25, co-authored 73 publications receiving 1871 citations.

Daytime behaviour problems and maternal stress in children with Down's syndrome, their siblings, and non‐intellectually disabled and other intellectually disabled peers

Abstract: The present study investigates the occurrence of daytime behaviour problems and mammal stress in a group of children with Down's syndrome (DS) compared with a group of their non-intellectually disabled siblings, a group of non-intellectually disabled children from the general population and a group of children with an intellectual disability other than Down's syndrome. The Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) and the Malaise Inventory were completed by the mothers. Associations between daytime behaviour problems and maternal stress were also explored. Overall, the children with DS and the children with other intellectual disabilities showed significantly higher rates of behavioural disturbance on all five of the ABC subscales (Irritability, Lethargy, Stereotypies, Hyperactivity and Inappropriate Speech) and on the Total ABC score. However, the children with other intellectual disabilities also showed significantly higher scores than the children with DS on four of the ABC subscales: Irritability, Lethargy, Stereotypies and Hyperactivity, as well as the Total ABC score. The siblings and children from the general population showed very similar behaviour scores. A number of significant age and sex differences were found in the occurrence of daytime behaviour problems. Maternal stress was significantly higher in the group with other forms of intellectual disability than the other three groups, and a number of significant associations were found between parental ratings of daytime behaviour problems and maternal stress in all four samples. The implications of the findings are discussed, including the need for early assessment to minimize adverse effects on the child's development and on family life.

Reading, language and memory skills: a comparative longitudinal study of children with Down syndrome and their mainstream peers.

Abstract: Background: Many of today's young adults with Down syndrome never had the opportunity to learn to read. However, an increasing number of children with Down syndrome are currently attending mainstream schools and being taught to read. As a consequence, it is now possible to systematically study reading development in children with Down syndrome. Aims: The aim of this study was to chart the development of reading, language, and memory skills in children with Down syndrome and to investigate the relationships between these abilities. Sample: Twenty-four children with Down syndrome aged between 4 and 12 were followed over two years and compared to 31 children matched for reading age, and 42 children of average reading ability, selected from the same mainstream classes as the children with Down syndrome. Method: Standardised assessments were administered annually to obtain measures of reading, spelling, language, memory, and general intelligence. Results: The children with Down syndrome had relatively advanced single word reading ability compared to their other cognitive skills. The reading progress of the children with Down syndrome did not differ significantly from that of the reading matched group even after two years. Different cognitive abilities were highly correlated with one another in all groups. However, after controlling for age, many of the partial correlations between reading and the other measures were reduced to non-significant levels. Conclusions: Most children with Down syndrome are capable of learning to read single words. However, there was no evidence over this two-year period to support the hypothesis that learning to read will help to enhance language and memory development in children with Down syndrome.

Investigating the literacy, language and memory skills of children with Down syndrome

Abstract: This paper presents the first phase of a longitudinal study following 24 children with Down syndrome who are receiving their education in mainstream primary schools. The literacy, numeracy, language and memory skills of the children with Down syndrome were compared to 2 groups of children selected from their classmates. The comparison groups were a group of typically developing children who were average readers in the classes and a group of children who were matched to the children with Down syndrome for reading age. The baseline data revealed that the children with Down syndrome had uneven cognitive profiles with relatively advanced reading skills compared to their other cognitive skills. The group of ordinary children who were matched to the children with Down syndrome on reading ability, attained significantly higher scores than the children with Down syndrome on all assessments other than reading. However, the reading matched group who were generally of below average reading ability for their age, were also significantly delayed relative to the average readers on measures of language, number and memory. As a group the average readers were average or above average on all measures. A cross-sectional analysis which divided the children with Down syndrome into 3 groups according to age and school year group indicates steady progress in all skills as the children move through primary school.

Efficacy of a reading and language intervention for children with Down syndrome: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract: Background: This study evaluates the effects of a language and literacy intervention for children with Down syndrome. Methods: Teaching assistants (TAs) were trained to deliver a reading and language intervention to children in individual daily 40-min sessions. We used a waiting list control design, in which half the sample received the intervention immediately, whereas the remaining children received the treatment after a 20-week delay. Fifty-seven children with Down syndrome in mainstream primary schools in two UK locations (Yorkshire and Hampshire) were randomly allocated to intervention (40 weeks of intervention) and waiting control (20 weeks of intervention) groups. Assessments were conducted at three time points: pre-intervention, after 20 weeks of intervention, and after 40 weeks of intervention. Results: After 20 weeks of intervention, the intervention group showed significantly greater progress than the waiting control group on measures of single word reading, letter-sound knowledge, phoneme blending and taught expressive vocabulary. Effects did not transfer to other skills (nonword reading, spelling, standardised expressive and receptive vocabulary, expressive information and grammar). After 40 weeks of intervention, the intervention group remained numerically ahead of the control group on most key outcome measures; but these differences were not significant. Children who were younger, attended more intervention sessions, and had better initial receptive language skills made greater progress during the course of the intervention. Conclusions: A TA-delivered intervention produced improvements in the reading and language skills of children with Down syndrome. Gains were largest in skills directly taught with little evidence of generalization to skills not directly taught in the intervention.

Computerized Memory Training Leads to Sustained Improvement in Visuospatial Short-Term Memory Skills in Children with Down Syndrome

Abstract: This study evaluated the impact of a computerized visuospatial memory training intervention on the memory and behavioral skills of children with Down syndrome. Teaching assistants were tra...

Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition

Abstract: Child psychiatrists, pediatricians, and other child clinicians need to have a solid understanding of child language development. There are at least four important reasons that make this necessary. First, slowing, arrest, and deviation of language development are highly associated with, and complicate the course of, child psychopathology. Second, language competence plays a crucial role in emotional and mood regulation, evaluation, and therapy. Third, language deficits are the most frequent underpinning of the learning disorders, ubiquitous in our clinical populations. Fourth, clinicians should not confuse the rich linguistic and dialectal diversity of our clinical populations with abnormalities in child language development. The challenge for the clinician becomes, then, how to get immersed in the captivating field of child language acquisition without getting overwhelmed by its conceptual and empirical complexity. In the past 50 years and since the seminal works of Roger Brown, Jerome Bruner, and Catherine Snow, child language researchers (often known as developmental psycholinguists) have produced a remarkable body of knowledge. Linguists such as Chomsky and philosophers such as Grice have strongly influenced the science of child language. One of the major tenets of Chomskian linguistics (known as generative grammar) is that children’s capacity to acquire language is “hardwired” with “universal grammar”—an innate language acquisition device (LAD), a language “instinct”—at its core. This view is in part supported by the assertion that the linguistic input that children receive is relatively dismal and of poor quality relative to the high quantity and quality of output that they manage to produce after age 2 and that only an advanced, innate capacity to decode and organize linguistic input can enable them to “get from here (prelinguistic infant) to there (linguistic child).” In “Constructing a Language,” Tomasello presents a contrasting theory of how the child acquires language: It is not a universal grammar that allows for language development. Rather, human cognition universals of communicative needs and vocal-auditory processing result in some language universals, such as nouns and verbs as expressions of reference and predication (p. 19). The author proposes that two sets of cognitive skills resulting from biological/phylogenetic adaptations are fundamental to the ontogenetic origins of language. These sets of inherited cognitive skills are intentionreading on the one hand and pattern-finding, on the other. Intention-reading skills encompass the prelinguistic infant’s capacities to share attention to outside events with other persons, establishing joint attentional frames, to understand other people’s communicative intentions, and to imitate the adult’s communicative intentions (an intersubjective form of imitation that requires symbolic understanding and perspective-taking). Pattern-finding skills include the ability of infants as young as 7 months old to analyze concepts and percepts (most relevant here, auditory or speech percepts) and create concrete or abstract categories that contain analogous items. Tomasello, a most prominent developmental scientist with research foci on child language acquisition and on social cognition and social learning in children and primates, succinctly and clearly introduces the major points of his theory and his views on the origins of language in the initial chapters. In subsequent chapters, he delves into the details by covering most language acquisition domains, namely, word (lexical) learning, syntax, and morphology and conversation, narrative, and extended discourse. Although one of the remaining domains (pragmatics) is at the core of his theory and permeates the text throughout, the relative paucity of passages explicitly devoted to discussing acquisition and proBOOK REVIEWS

Neurodevelopmental outcomes in children with congenital heart disease: evaluation and management: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association.

Abstract: Background— The goal of this statement was to review the available literature on surveillance, screening, evaluation, and management strategies and put forward a scientific statement that would comprehensively review the literature and create recommendations to optimize neurodevelopmental outcome in the pediatric congenital heart disease (CHD) population. Methods and Results— A writing group appointed by the American Heart Association and American Academy of Pediatrics reviewed the available literature addressing developmental disorder and disability and developmental delay in the CHD population, with specific attention given to surveillance, screening, evaluation, and management strategies. MEDLINE and Google Scholar database searches from 1966 to 2011 were performed for English-language articles cross-referencing CHD with pertinent search terms. The reference lists of identified articles were also searched. The American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association classification of recommendations and levels of evidence for practice guidelines were used. A management algorithm was devised that stratified children with CHD on the basis of established risk factors. For those deemed to be at high risk for developmental disorder or disabilities or for developmental delay, formal, periodic developmental and medical evaluations are recommended. A CHD algorithm for surveillance, screening, evaluation, reevaluation, and management of developmental disorder or disability has been constructed to serve as a supplement to the 2006 American Academy of Pediatrics statement on developmental surveillance and screening. The proposed algorithm is designed to be carried out within the context of the medical home. This scientific statement is meant for medical providers within the medical home who care for patients with CHD. Conclusions— Children with CHD are at increased risk of developmental disorder or disabilities or developmental delay. Periodic developmental surveillance, screening, evaluation, and reevaluation throughout childhood may enhance identification of significant deficits, allowing for appropriate therapies and education to enhance later academic, behavioral, psychosocial, and adaptive functioning.

Pre-school children with and without developmental delay: behaviour problems and parenting stress over time

Abstract: Background Children with intellectual disability are at heightened risk for behaviour problems and diagnosed mental disorder. Methods The present authors studied the early manifestation and continuity of problem behaviours in 205 pre-school children with and without developmental delays. Results Behaviour problems were quite stable over the year from age 36-48 months. Children with developmental delays were rated higher on behaviour problems than their non-delayed peers, and were three times as likely to score in the clinical range. Mothers and fathers showed high agreement in their rating of child problems, especially in the delayed group. Parenting stress was also higher in the delayed group, but was related to the extent of behaviour problems rather than to the child's developmental delay. Conclusion Over time, a transactional model fit the relationship between parenting stress and behaviour problems: high parenting stress contributed to a worsening in child behaviour problems over time, and high child behaviour problems contributed to a worsening in parenting stress. Findings for mothers and fathers were quite similar.

Do “Brain-Training” Programs Work?:

Abstract: In 2014, two groups of scientists published open letters on the efficacy of brain-training interventions, or "brain games," for improving cognition. The first letter, a consensus statement from an international group of more than 70 scientists, claimed that brain games do not provide a scientifically grounded way to improve cognitive functioning or to stave off cognitive decline. Several months later, an international group of 133 scientists and practitioners countered that the literature is replete with demonstrations of the benefits of brain training for a wide variety of cognitive and everyday activities. How could two teams of scientists examine the same literature and come to conflicting "consensus" views about the effectiveness of brain training?In part, the disagreement might result from different standards used when evaluating the evidence. To date, the field has lacked a comprehensive review of the brain-training literature, one that examines both the quantity and the quality of the evidence according to a well-defined set of best practices. This article provides such a review, focusing exclusively on the use of cognitive tasks or games as a means to enhance performance on other tasks. We specify and justify a set of best practices for such brain-training interventions and then use those standards to evaluate all of the published peer-reviewed intervention studies cited on the websites of leading brain-training companies listed on Cognitive Training Data (www.cognitivetrainingdata.org), the site hosting the open letter from brain-training proponents. These citations presumably represent the evidence that best supports the claims of effectiveness.Based on this examination, we find extensive evidence that brain-training interventions improve performance on the trained tasks, less evidence that such interventions improve performance on closely related tasks, and little evidence that training enhances performance on distantly related tasks or that training improves everyday cognitive performance. We also find that many of the published intervention studies had major shortcomings in design or analysis that preclude definitive conclusions about the efficacy of training, and that none of the cited studies conformed to all of the best practices we identify as essential to drawing clear conclusions about the benefits of brain training for everyday activities. We conclude with detailed recommendations for scientists, funding agencies, and policymakers that, if adopted, would lead to better evidence regarding the efficacy of brain-training interventions.

Preschool Children with Intellectual Disability: Syndrome Specificity, Behaviour Problems, and Maternal Well-Being

Abstract: Summary Background Children with intellectual disability (ID) are at heightened risk for behaviour problems and diagnosed mental disorder. Likewise, mothers of children with ID are more stressed than mothers of typically developing children. Research on behavioural phenotypes suggests that different syndromes of ID may be associated with distinct child behavioural risks and maternal well-being risks. In the present study, maternal reports of child behaviour problems and maternal well-being were examined for syndrome-specific differences. Methods The present authors studied the early manifestation and continuity of syndrome-specific behaviour problems in 215 preschool children belonging to 5 groups (typically developing, undifferentiated developmental delays, Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy) as well as the relation of syndrome group to maternal well-being. Results At age 3, children with autism and cerebral palsy showed the highest levels of behaviour problems, and children with Down syndrome and typically developing children showed the lowest levels. Mothers of children with autism reported more parenting stress than all other groups. These syndrome-specific patterns of behaviour and maternal stress were stable across ages 3, 4 and 5 years, except for relative increases in behaviour problems and maternal stress in the Down syndrome and cerebral palsy groups. Child syndrome contributed to maternal stress even after accounting for differences in behaviour problems and cognitive level. Conclusions These results, although based on small syndrome groups, suggest that phenotypic expressions of behaviour problems are manifested as early as age 3. These behavioural differences were paralleled by differences in maternal stress, such that mothers of children with autism are at elevated risk for high stress. In addition, there appear to be other unexamined characteristics of these syndromes, beyond behaviour problems, which also contribute to maternal stress.