2016 Gatlinburg Conference Poster
PS-81
Title: Stigma and Down Syndrome: Social Preferences and Attributions Towards Themselves and Others by Young People with
and without Down Syndrome
Authors: Andrew Jahoda, Karen Deakin, Derek Moore
Introduction: Little is known about the impact of stigma on children growing up with an intellectual disability. Research with
adults does not take in to consideration the development of self-perception and identity, which might play a key role in
children's awareness of stigma, how they deal with it and its long-term effects. Children with Down syndrome may have a
heightened sense of difference due to the visibility of their disability. This study investigated children with Down syndrome's
awareness of their disability.
Methods: Twenty-eight young people with Down syndrome (aged 8-17 years old) were recruited, along with a control group of
53 typically developing young people of the same age and 14 typically developing children who were younger. Three tasks were
used to explore the children's developing awareness of Down syndrome: i) choice of partner for social activities, ii) sorting
photographs of children with and without Down syndrome, and iii) attributing positive or negative descriptors to photographs of
children with and without Down syndrome and to themselves. All the tasks used carefully developed visual materials to allow the
children with limited expressive verbal abilities to indicate their preferred responses reliably.
Results: Participants with and without Down syndrome expressed a preference to engage in social activities with typically
developing peers. While the typically developing participants accurately sorted the photographs of children with and without
Down syndrome, the participants with Down syndrome failed to do so. The majority of the participants with Down syndrome
identified with the typically developing young person. Both sets of children also attributed more positive descriptors to the
photographs of the typically developing young people than to the photographs of young people with Down syndrome.
Nevertheless, most participants with and without Down syndrome remained positive about themselves.
Discussion: The encouraging finding that the children with Down syndrome were able to retain a positive sense of self, despite
holding apparently negative views about others with Down syndrome, may be testimony to these children's resilience or a
strategy of identifying with what they regard as a higher status group. However, the children's negative views towards their
peers with Down Syndrome have implications for policy and practice. Families can find it difficult to know when and how to talk
to their children about their disability, for fear of causing distress (Ali et al. 2012). However, the findings suggest children with
Down syndrome have insight into their condition and related social attitudes from a young age. Failure of family or professionals
to talk openly about this topic could be misunderstood by young people with Down syndrome disability as tacit support for
prevailing negative attitudes. Therefore, there may be a need to support family and professionals to have the confidence to talk
with children at a younger age about their disability.
References/Citations:
• Ali, A., Hassiotis, A., Strydon, A. & King, M. (2012). Self stigma in people with intellectual disabilities and courtesy stigma
in family carers: A systematic review. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 33 (6), 2122-2140