The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Description of Daily Living Skills and Independence: A Cohort from a Multidisciplinary Down Syndrome Clinic
Abstract
Levels of independence vary in individuals with Down syndrome (DS). We began this study to describe the current life skills in our clinic population of children and adults with DS. We collected and reviewed demographics, living situation, and life skills from an electronic intake form used in clinic procedures. Descriptive statistics for this cohort study included mean, standard deviation, and frequencies. From 2014–2020, 350 pediatric and 196 adult patients (range 0–62 years) with a first visit to the Massachusetts General Hospital Down Syndrome Program are described. Pediatric patients were most often enrolled in school, and in an inclusion setting. Adult patients were most often participating in a day program, living with family, and wanted to continue living with family in the future. Most (87%) of adults with DS communicated verbally, though fewer could use written communication (17%). Life skills of greatest importance to adolescents and adults with DS included: learning about healthy foods (35%), preparing meals (34%), providing personal information when needed (35%), and describing symptoms to a doctor (35%). Life skills for patients with DS are varied; those associated with a medical appointment, such as sharing symptoms with the doctor, could improve for greater independence.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Fewer than 10% of adolescents or young adults with ID can independently prepare meals.
“In contrast, fewer than 10% of adolescents or young adults with ID can independently prepare meals22, and more than half report difficulty with basic cooking tasks23.”
From A cooking skills intervention for long-term weight loss in young adults with intellectual disabilities: Rationale and design for a randomized trial (2026) · cites this paper as [22]
The Results report that 4% of adults with Down syndrome in this clinic cohort could cook independently. They do not establish that fewer than 10% of adolescents or young adults with intellectual disability generally can prepare meals; the measured group was adults with Down syndrome, and cooking was not distinguished from preparing simple meals (Results and Discussion; page numbers unavailable). (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 24
- Santoro, S.L., Campbell, A., Balasubramanian, A., Haugen, K., Schafer, K., and Mobley, W. (2021). Specialty clinics for adults with Down syndrome: A clinic survey. Am. J. Med. Genet. A. · DOI
- Buckley, 2017, Estimation of the number of people with Down syndrome in the United States, Genet. Med., 19, 439, 10.1038/gim.2016.127 · DOI
- Carr, 1994, Long-term-outcome for people with Down’s syndrome, J. Child. Psychol. Psychiatry, 35, 425, 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1994.tb01732.x · DOI
- Hawkins, 2003, Adaptive Behavior and Cognitive Function of Adults with down Syndrome: Modeling Change with Age, Ment. Retard., 41, 7, 10.1352/0047-6765(2003)041<0007:ABACFO>2.0.CO;2 · DOI
- Matthews, 2018, An assessment of health, social, communication, and daily living skills of adults with Down syndrome, Am. J. Med Genet. Part A, 176, 1389, 10.1002/ajmg.a.38721 · DOI · Paper page
- De Graaf, G., Levine, S.P., Goldstein, R., and Skotko, B.G. (2018). Parents’ perceptions of functional abilities in people with Down syndrome. Am. J. Med. Genet. Part A. · DOI
- Bertoli, 2011, Needs and challenges of daily life for people with Down syndrome residing in the city of Rome, Italy, J. Intellect. Disabil. Res., 55, 801, 10.1111/j.1365-2788.2011.01432.x · DOI
- Lin, 2016, Functional independence of Taiwanese children with Down syndrome, Dev. Med. Child. Neurol, 58, 502, 10.1111/dmcn.12889 · DOI
- Esbensen, 2008, Stability and change in health, functional abilities, and behavior problems among adults with and without Down syndrome, Am. J. Ment. Retard., 113, 263, 10.1352/0895-8017(2008)113[263:SACIHF]2.0.CO;2 · DOI
- Makary, 2015, Association between adaptive behaviour and age in adults with Down syndrome without dementia: Examining the range and severity of adaptive behaviour problems, J. Intellect. Disabil. Res., 59, 689, 10.1111/jir.12172 · DOI
- Barbosa, 2018, Contributions of speech-language therapy to the integration of individuals with Down syndrome in the workplace, Codas, 30, e20160144
- Nugent, 2018, Disparities in access to healthcare transition services for adolescents with Down syndrome, J. Pediatr., 197, 214, 10.1016/j.jpeds.2018.01.072 · DOI
- Curry, 2018, Longitudinal study of driver licensing rates among adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder, Autism, 22, 479, 10.1177/1362361317699586 · DOI
- Alonso-Sardón, M., Iglesias-de-Sena, H., Fernández-Martín, L.C., and Mirón-Canelo, J.A. (2019). Do health and social support and personal autonomy have an influence on the health-related quality of life of individuals with intellectual disability?. BMC Health Serv. Res., 19. · DOI
- Oppewal, 2015, Physical fitness is predictive for a decline in the ability to perform instrumental activities of daily living in older adults with intellectual disabilities: Results of the HA-ID Study, Res. Dev. Disabil., 41–42, 76, 10.1016/j.ridd.2015.05.002 · DOI
- Sakurai, 2019, Poor social network, not living alone, is associated with incidence of adverse health outcomes in older adults, J. Am. Med. Dir. Assoc., 20, 1438, 10.1016/j.jamda.2019.02.021 · DOI
- Bouck, 2017, Supporting grocery shopping for students with intellectual disability: A preliminary study, Disabil. Rehabil. Assist. Technol., 12, 605, 10.1080/17483107.2016.1201152 · DOI
- Dag, 2017, Experiences of using bestic, an eating aid for people with intellectual disabilities, J. Intellect. Disabil., 21, 87, 10.1177/1744629515623167 · DOI
- Sandjojo, 2018, Training staff to promote self-management in people with intellectual disabilities, J. Appl. Res. Intellect. Disabil., 31, 840, 10.1111/jar.12440 · DOI
- Allen, 2015, An evaluation of parent-produced video self-modeling to improve independence in an adolescent with intellectual developmental disorder and an autism spectrum disorder: A controlled case study, Behav. Modif., 39, 542, 10.1177/0145445515583247 · DOI
- Wagner, 2020, Using technology and remote support services to promote independent living of adults with intellectual disability and related developmental disabilities, J. Appl. Res. Intellect. Disabil., 33, 640, 10.1111/jar.12709 · DOI
- Esbensen, 2018, Convergent validity of actigraphy with polysomnography and parent reports when measuring sleep in children with Down syndrome, J. Intellect. Disabil. Res., 62, 281, 10.1111/jir.12464 · DOI
- Lazar, 2018, Co-design process of a smart phone app to help people with Down syndrome manage their nutritional habits, J. Usability Stud., 13, 73
- Peprah, 2015, DS-connect: A promising tool to improve lives and engage down syndrome communities worldwide, Glob. Heart, 10, 337, 10.1016/j.gheart.2015.04.001 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Ptomey, L. T., Danon, J. C., Catley, D., Washburn, R. A., Bodde, A., Diaz, F. J., Helsel, B. C., Rice, A. M., Sherman, J. R., Koester, M., et al. (2026) · Contemporary Clinical Trials · doi:10.1016/j.cct.2026.108380
Metadata
- Authors
- Krell, K., Haugen, K., Torres, A., & Santoro, S.
- Affiliations
- Division of Medical Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA
- ORCID
- Santoro, Stephanie
- Venue
- Brain Sciences
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2021-07-30
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1012
- ISSN
- 2076-3425
- PMC
- PMC8391843
- Cited by
- 28
- References
- 0
- Language
- en
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (K23HD100568)
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review