Cognitive communication skills in children with Intellectual Developmental Disorder

Abstract

The need of the study was to evaluate cognitive communication skills in children with Intellectual Developmental Disorder (IDD). One such Indian tool used to determine the cognitive communicative ability is Children’s Communicative Cognition Assessment Battery (3CAB)   in Tamil. The present research was aimed at exploring the cognitive communicative aspects in children with Intellectual Development Disorder using 3-CAB. Method:  Children with IDD across different severities of Intellectual Disabilities were identified (20 participants in each group) and included in the current study between the language age of 3 -9 years.  Children’s Communicative Cognition Assessment Battery (3CAB) in Tamil were administered for children with IDD and age matched Typical Developing Children (TDC). Results: The Overall mean scores across all domains such as attention, discrimination, memory, executive functioning and social cognition were documented for TDC and Children with IDD. Due to intelligence factor and lack of cognitive ability children with IDD displayed significant difference in mean score across all domains as compared with TDC. Cognitive skills include planning, problem solving, learning which has greater influences on communication and communicative competence. Thus, children with IDD demonstrated poor scores in cognitive domains hence affecting the child’s communicative performance. Henceforth professionals can use the current instrument in predicting the child’s communicative performance effectively.