Pragmatic competence in people with dual diagnosis: down syndrome and autism spectrum disorder

Sara Cortés Escudero; Esther Moraleda Sepúlveda

doi:10.1186/s40359-023-01508-5

Pragmatic competence in people with dual diagnosis: down syndrome and autism spectrum disorder

BMC Psychol. 2024 Feb 15;12(1):74. doi: 10.1186/s40359-023-01508-5.

Authors

Sara Cortés Escudero¹, Esther Moraleda Sepúlveda²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Castilla-La-Mancha, Avda Real Fábrica de la Seda s/n, 45600, Talavera de la Reina, Spain.
² Department of Psychology, Faculty of Pychology, University Complutense. Campus de Somosaguas, 28223, Pozuelo de Alarcón. Madrid, Spain. esmora01@ucm.es.

Abstract

Background: Pragmatics is an area that can be affected in a wide variety of disorders. In this sense, Syndromic Autism is defined as a disorder in which a causal link is established between an associated syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Likewise, Down Syndrome (DS) is one of the main genetically based syndromes in which ASD is described as one of its possible manifestations. In this direction, people with DS are described as social beings whereas in ASD there seems to be a specific alteration of this domain.

Methods: In this study, pragmatic performance was analysed in a sample of 72 participants, where comparisons were made between the scores obtained by children with ASD (n = 24), with DS (n = 24) and with DS + ASD (n = 24).

Results: The Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), the Block Objective and Criterial Language Battery (BLOC-SR) and the Neuropsychology subtest (NEPSY-II) aimed at Theory of Mind (ToM) identified significant differences between the groups. However, two-to-two comparisons reported no significant differences between DS and DS + ASD.

Conclusions: Although several studies report differences between the three proposed groups, our data seem to suggest that ASD symptomatology in DS is associated with Intellectual Developmental Disorder (IDD). However, the lack of solid scientific evidence regarding comorbid diagnosis makes further research along these lines indispensable.

Trial registration: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee for Social Research at UCLM with reference CEIS-704,511-L8M4.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD); Communication; Down Syndrome (DS); Dual diagnosis; Pragmatic skills.

MeSH terms

Autism Spectrum Disorder* / diagnosis
Autism Spectrum Disorder* / psychology
Child
Communication
Down Syndrome* / complications
Down Syndrome* / diagnosis
Down Syndrome* / psychology
Humans
Language
Neuropsychological Tests