PRESERVED VOCABULARY ACQUISITION IN DOWNS-SYNDROME - THE ROLE OF PHONOLOGICAL SHORT-TERM-MEMORY

We report the study of a 23-year-old Italian girl, FF, with Down's syn drome (trisomy 21). FF showed a remarkably good developmental acquisit ion of Italian language and vocabulary and was able to learn English a nd French, although the latter with less proficiency. FF showed an ent irely preserved function of the phonological short-term store and arti culatory rehearsal components of verbal short-term memory. By contrast , she was impaired in a wide range of tasks assessing verbal and non-v erbal reasoning, visuo-spatial perception and memory, and verbal long- term memory. These findings, in line with evidence from brain-damaged patients, normal subjects and children, suggest that phonological shor t-term memory plays a crucial role in vocabulary acquisition, which ma y occur in the presence of substantial deficits of general intelligenc e and episodic memory.