Fig. 1From: Health comorbidities and cognitive abilities across the lifespan in Down syndromeChanges in receptive language ability across the lifespan in DS. Lines show performance for males (blue) and females (red), with age-typical performance (black). The top graph (a) represents receptive language z-scores across the lifespan (males n = 271, females n = 252), with a value of 0 corresponding to age-typical performance. The bottom graphs (b-e) represent raw scores coresponding to the z-scores in the top graph, split into scores for younger children (b; males n = 59, females n = 45), older children (c; males n = 10, females n = 15), younger adults (d; males n = 80, females n = 77), and older adults (e; males n = 122, females n = 115). Children with DS develop abilities (b and c) but do so at a slower pace than typically developing children, as reflected by a decrease in z-scores over childhood (a). Young adults with DS show a plateau in abilities (d), while in older adults with DS there is a decrease in raw scores (e) likely associated with the development of dementia which results in a further decrease in z-scores (a)Back to article page