The Relationship between Speech Recognition Ability and Short-term Memory in Children with Down Syndrome

In order to compare the difference in speech recognition ability and short-term memory between children with Down syndrome (DS) and normal children (TD), and to explore the relationship between DS children’s speech recognition ability and short-term memory, this study tested two groups of children with Chinese minimal phoneme pairs. Results: (1) The speech recognition ability of DS children was significantly lower than that of TD children in the control group; The short-term verbal memory of DS children is significantly lower than that of TD children in the control group. (2) The difference between DS children’s speech recognition ability and speech short-term memory performance of four stimuli is significantly lower than the difference between speech short-term memory performance of four stimuli and six stimuli; There was no significant difference between the speech recognition ability of TD children and the speech short-term memory scores of four stimuli and between the speech short-term memory scores of four stimuli and six stimuli. Conclusion: DS children have defects in speech recognition and short-term memory. DS children’s speech recognition ability is not the main reason for their poor short-term memory.