Drs. Layton and Hao Travel to China

Dr. Layton traveled to Guangzhou People’s Republic of China in August to train parents and professionals on “Communication Among Children with Down Syndrome.” The training lasted three days including Dr. Layton evaluating several young Chinese children with Down syndrome. Yang-Ai Special Children Parent Club invited Dr. Layton. Yang-Ai has 1100 family members of which more than 200 are families with Down syndrome. Estimated number of individuals with Down syndrome in China is 1,623,559; however, the birth prevalence of Down syndrome in China is low, less than 1/1000 live births because of the one child family policy. This means women usually choose to have their child between 25 and 27 years of age, and pregnant women of advanced maternal age are rare.
Approximately 100 participants attended the training. Many of the participants were parents who brought their children. Dr. Layton was impressed with the motivation and parental support for their children. Many had introduced early oral-motor skills to assist in feeding, swallowing, and speech production. A lot of questions and concerns were focused on oral-motor skills, behavior, and, of course, speech production and communication.
Dr. Layton and Dr. Grace Hao, from Talk and Total Communication, translated our “Developmental Scale for Children with Down Syndrome” into Chinese. Several of the families then completed the scale on their children. Dr. Layton reported that the Chinese version of the scale was quite accurate despite its English to Mandarin translation. Dr. Layton and Dr. Hao hope to assist the Yang-Ai Special Children Parent Club in fully standardizing the scale on Mandarin speaking children with Down syndrome.
[nggallery id=2]