Social development

Social development includes the development of a variety of interpersonal and self-help skills, and socially acceptable behaviour. These skills are vital for interacting successfully with others in our families and communities throughout life. This topic explores social development for children and young people with Down syndrome and how we can support the development of social skills and appropriate behaviours.

TODO: further introduction, orientation?

Understanding social development

[TODO: summary] Social development includes the development of a variety of interpersonal and self-help skills, and socially acceptable behaviour. These skills are vital for interacting successfully with others in our families and communities throughout life. This section examines what we understand about social development for children and young people with Down syndrome.

What is social development?

Social development includes the development of interpersonal social skills, friendships, play and leisure skills, independence and self-help skills, and socially acceptable behaviour. It can be argued that social development is fundamentally important to any individual’s well-being since the ability to socialise, to make friends and to take care of one’s self, affects all aspects of daily life. In fact, social confidence and competence may be more important than academic skills for becoming independent, finding work, having friends and being independent in the community as an adult.

Most aspects of social development involve social interaction or social activity with other people and, therefore, the ability to understand the behaviour, emotions and feelings of others is important for success in social relationships. The ability to communicate effectively with others is equally important in developing social relationships and managing daily life.

How is social development affected by Down syndrome?

For children and adults with Down syndrome, social understanding is usually a strength, beginning in infancy. Many of the cues which indicate how someone is feeling are non-verbal, for example, tone of voice, facial expression and body posture, so that even when a child or adult does not understand all the spoken language being used in a social situation they are still able to pick up the main messages about feelings and behave in an appropriate way, despite the delays in their development of spoken language skills. This has led a number of authors to emphasise the good social skills, empathy and social competence of most children and adults with Down syndrome.[1–8] and this can help them to be successful in community activities and in inclusive education. [TODO: review the following] However, our experience suggests that good social understanding of the behaviour of others can also enable children with Down syndrome to be skilled at being naughty as they know exactly how to provoke the reactions they want! We will return to this issue in the section on behaviour below.

Individual differences

It is important to stress that children with Down syndrome are all individuals and differ widely in their social skills, communication abilities and understanding. In addition, like all children, the social development of infants and children with Down syndrome will be influenced by their temperament, experiences in the family, school and community and by the way they are treated by others.[4,9–12] The behaviour of a child is almost always very different in an environment where they feel safe and understands what is expected of them compared with the same child’s behaviour when sensing negative emotions or when unable to explain a difficulty.

Additional difficulties

A small number of children with Down syndrome also have other conditions such as neurodevelopmental disorders, including autistic spectrum disorders, and these children will have social difficulties and will not show the good social understanding that is typical of most children with Down syndrome.

References

1. Sigman, M., Ruskin, E., Arbeile, S., Corona, R., Dissanayake, C., Espinosa, M., Kim, N., López, A., & Zierhut, C. (1999). Continuity and change in the social competence of children with autism, Down syndrome, and developmental delays. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 64(1), 1–114. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5834.00002
2. Kasari, C., & Freeman, S. F. (2001). Task-related social behavior in children with Down syndrome. American Journal of Mental Retardation: AJMR, 106(3), 253–264. https://doi.org/10.1352/0895-8017(2001)106<0253:TRSBIC>2.0.CO;2
3. Carr, J. (1995). Down’s Syndrome: Children Growing Up. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511581779
4. Buckley, S., & Sacks, B. (1987). The Adolescent with Down’s Syndrome: Life for the Teenager and for the Family. Portsmouth Down’s Syndrome Trust, Psychology Department, Portsmouth Polytechnic, King Charles St.
5. Kasari, C., & Sigman, M. (1996). Expression and understanding of emotion in atypical development: Autism and Down syndrome. In Emotional development in atypical children (pp. 109–130). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
6. Kasari, C., Freeman, S., Mundy, P., & Sigman, M. D. (1995). Attention regulation by children with Down syndrome: Coordinated joint attention and social referencing looks. American Journal of Mental Retardation: AJMR, 100(2), 128–136.
7. Kasari, C., Mundy, P., Yirmiya, N., & Sigman, M. (1990). Affect and attention in children with Down syndrome. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 95, 55–67.
8. Hornby, G. (1995). Fathers’ views of the effects on their families of children with Down syndrome. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 4, 103–117. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02233957
9. Byrne, E., Cunningham, C., & Sloper, P. (2002). Families Child Downs Syndrome. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203206041
10. Cunningham, C. (2006). Down Syndrome: An Introduction for Parents and Carers. Souvenir Press Limited.
11. Sloper, P., Cunningham, C., Knussen, C., & Turner, S. (1988). A study of the process of adaptation in a cohort of children with Down’s syndrome and their families. End of grant report for DHSS. Hester Adrian research Centre. University of Manchester, UK.
12. Sloper, P., & Turner, S. (1994). Families of teenagers with Down syndrome: Parent, child and sibling adaptation. End of grant report for ESRC. Hester Adrian research Centre. University of Manchester, UK.

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