Mastery motivation in children with Down syndrome.

Mastery motivation refers to the intrinsic motivation children have to interact with their environments in order to learn about them. It appears early in life, and has been regarded by many researchers as a key motivator for development. It has also been suggested that young school age children with Down syndrome show lowered motivation to perform tasks. It is important to know if this low motivation is present from the start, or develops as a result of environmental experiences; studies of mastery motivation have been one way of investigating this issue. However definitions of mastery motivation, and hence empirical studies, have varied. Thus this paper starts by revisiting the issues surrounding definition and measurement. There is general agreement on some issues: that mastery motivation is intrinsic, that it is manifest in different behaviours as the child develops, that there are individual differences in mastery behaviour, and that these are affected by environmental factors. There is also current agreement that it is essential to remove the confound of differing levels of developmental competence by using individualized measurement. However there is disagreement about which behaviours best index mastery motivation. Some empirical work with infants with Down syndrome is reviewed, and results from a recent longitudinal study on the development of mastery motivation are presented. The results concurred with most others in the recent literature, suggesting that low mastery motivation is not inevitable in infancy in Down syndrome. Infants with Down syndrome showed similar patterns of development as typically developing children, with slight delays. It is argued that longitudinal studies are needed to demonstrate such patterns of development. As the children developed from 6 to 24 months mental age there was no evidence for decreasing levels of mastery motivation. Thus there was no support for the view that more failure experiences impact on levels of mastery motivation. In contrast caregivers did see their young children with Down syndrome as less object mastery oriented than did caregivers of typically developing children. The caregivers of children with Down syndrome were also significantly more directive in their interactions with their children, and there was some suggestion that individual differences in mastery behaviours were related to levels of mastery behaviours in their children. The final section speculates on reasons for these results, and makes suggestions for future work.

Comparison of the 1969 and 1993 standardizations of the Bayley Mental Scales of Infant Development for infants with Down's syndrome.

The Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) were re-standardized in 1993 (BSID-II). The present study reports a comparison of the two versions with infants with Down's syndrome (DS). The BSID-II was used for 93 assessments of 54 children with DS (age range = 7-43 months). Comparisons were made with the 1969 standardization for 42 of these assessments, and for 45 assessments of 20 typically developing children aged between 6 and 24 months. The 1993 standardization produced significantly lower mean differences of 1.0 months mental age and 8.4 points mental development index for infants with DS, and 1.5 months mental age and 9.2 points mental development index for the typically developing group. Nineteen per cent more infants with DS had scores below two standard deviations and there was a larger decrement for lower functioning children. Both groups of children have to perform at a higher level to achieve the same relative score on BSID-II compared to BSID. This indicates that caution should be used in comparing cohorts of children tested on different versions of the Bayley scales. In addition, concerns are highlighted regarding the rules for establishing basal and ceiling levels for BSID-II for children with developmental delays.

Evaluation of an electronic memory aid in the neuropsychological rehabilitation of prospective memory deficits.

Five subjects with acquired memory impairment were trained to use a new electronic memory aid, the Voice Organizer, to manage prospective memory errors. Performance was assessed on two measures analogous to everyday memory tasks; a Message-Passing task requiring prospective recall after a delay of 9 hours, and a Domestic Task measure which involved the recall of household chores following a delay of 1-6 days. All subjects benefited from the introduction of the aid on the Message-Passing task and all but one improved their prospective recall on the Domestic Task measure. These results suggest that the Voice Organizer may be a useful aid in the neuropsychological rehabilitation of prospective memory impairment.