The mathematics curriculum in primary school includes learning about number and calculation, shape, size, quantity and measurement, time and money. Learning in children's pre-school years introduces them to the ideas and language for helping them to learn about mathematics. Young children's first understanding of number and other mathematical concepts comes from their experiences with people and items in their environment. Language is an essential part of learning about mathematics as it provides the tools for thinking about, comparing and manipulating sets of objects and activities, and relating these to a number system. Young children with Down syndrome experience delay in language learning, in auditory short term memory development and may have less experience of manipulating or playing with objects, but have strengths in learning visually. With focused language teaching, repetition and visual teaching approaches, they can learn the language for numbers and mathematics. Number games should be interesting and allow for exploration and fun, making number skills meaningful to everyday life and the child's environment.Some children will learn in very small steps, with each aspect broken down for them, taught and practised, other children will develop skills more quickly, after they have been helped to learn about numbers using visual aids, through good teaching and from multi-sensory learning experiences. This module provides examples for everyday social interaction, language teaching and games that can help to develop early number and maths skills, beginning with nursery rhymes, songs, play and words, introducing activities from one year of age up until the child goes to school. Vocabulary lists for maths concepts that will be useful for parents of children to early school age are included. This module should be read in conjunction with Number skills for individuals with Down syndrome - An overview. DSii-09-01]

This module provides a programme of activities and advice designed to assist the development of speech and language skills for children with Down syndrome from birth to five years. The advice and activities are based on knowledge of the processes affecting speech and language development in typically developing children, the identified difficulties of children with Down syndrome and current research findings from studies evaluating effective remedial strategies. It also includes checklists for evaluating and recording children's development of interactive communication skills, speech sounds, vocabulary, sentences and grammar. The programme will enable parents, teachers and therapists to help children with Down syndrome to learn to talk, to talk in sentences, and to develop their speech clarity and conversational skills. It starts with activities to develop the foundation skills in infancy that lead on to talking, including the use of gesture and sign to support comprehension, and with an emphasis on speech sound work from infancy.Building a spoken vocabulary to 400 words by 5 years of age is seen as a priority, in order to develop grammar and phonology, and a recommended vocabulary programme with record sheets is included. The ways in which reading activities should be used to support all aspects of speech and language learning during preschool years are mentioned but the detailed advice on teaching early reading is in the reading module. This module follows on from Speech and language development for individuals with Down syndrome - An overview DSii-03-01] which should be read first, to provide the reader with an adequate understanding of speech and language development to be successful in using this programme.

Offers an introduction to the development of infants with Down syndrome. Drawing on the research, this book examines many aspects of development during the early years, and is a useful reference for families and professionals caring for young children with Down syndrome.