Human Development and School Services Faculty Publications

Questions Matter: Investigating the Role of Caregiver Interactions in Children With Down Syndrome

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-2026

Abstract

Purpose: Past research on interactions between parents and their children with Down syndrome (DS) has focused on mothers as the communication partner, despite fathers also frequently interacting with their children. This exploratory study examined mother and father question-asking behaviors during dyadic interactions with their children with DS and included preliminary observations of children's responsiveness to capture the bidirectional nature of interaction.

Method: Participants included 15 children with DS (Mage = 39.67 months) and their biological parents. Each participant was administered the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. Ten-minute interactions for mother-child and father-child dyads were video-recorded during free-play in their home. Analyses examined the differences in the rate and type of questions between mothers and fathers and whether question asking was associated with children's nonverbal developmental quotient (NVDQ), language ability, chronological age, or rate of response.

Results: Mothers asked significantly more questions than fathers, including more open-ended, closed-ended, and rhetorical questions, as well as specific subtypes of closed-ended questions. Within individual family units, mothers asked more questions than fathers in 10 of the 15 families studied. Exploratory observations of child responses suggested that responsiveness varied across dyads. Parental questioning behaviors were associated with children's NVDQs and chronological age, but not language ability.

Conclusion: Results underscore the importance of including both parents in language interventions for children with DS and suggest that parents naturally adjust their questioning strategies based on children's NVDQs and chronological age rather than language skills.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.31842937

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Copyright © 2026 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Publication Title

American journal of speech-language pathology

DOI

10.1044/2026_AJSLP-25-00254

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