Voluntary Orienting Among Children and Adolescents With Down Syndrome and MA-Matched Typically Developing Children

A forced-choice reaction-time (RT) task was used to examine voluntary visual orienting among children and adolescents with trisomy 21 Down syndrome and typically developing children matched at an MA of approximately 5.6 years, an age when the development of orienting abilities reaches optimal adult-like efficiency. Both groups displayed faster reaction times (RTs) when the target location was cued correctly than when cued incorrectly under both short and long SOA conditions, indicating intact orienting among children with Down syndrome. This finding is further evidence that the efficiency of many of the primary components of attention among persons with Down syndrome is consistent with their developmental level.