Children with Down syndrome want to communicate about their thoughts and needs with us, but often do not know how to do it. The additional 21st chromosome affects various areas of an individual's functioning, appearance and life itself, including the speech and language abilities of children with Down syndrome. There are types and forms of augmentative and alternative communication that can be used to enable children with Down syndrome to communicate with their surroundings, and one of these is communication supported by gestures.
In the Master's thesis, we determined to what extent and for what purposes a preschool child with Down syndrome uses gesture-supported communication. In the research we included a four-year-old girl with Down syndrome. The girl was included in the pre-school department with an adapted program for the first year. A qualitative research method and a case study was used. We wanted to find out whether the girl would repeat the selected gestures, adopt them over time and gradually start using them independently for the purposes of communication and messaging.
We found that the girl achieved the set goals. The girl repeated the selected gestures, connected the pictures with the provided gestures and in some spontaneous situations also used the learned gestures.
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