My revised Essential Question: Can good language skills help bring understanding of the world around them and an awareness of their disabilty to children with Down Syndrome?

1. Are children with Down Syndrome aware of their disability?
2. Is there a part of language that is more difficult to learn? (receptive or expressive)
3. How does the Speech Language Pathologist approach therapy with thes children?

Well, I'm finishing up on week 4. Although I 'm still stuggeling with my essential and foundation question, the resource assignments gave me some extra time to find information. While doing these assginments I uncovered gold mines of information about Down Syndrome. This is a great relief, but I just can't get my question worded right.
I know what I want to address, I just don't know how.
I want to know what it is like to live with DS. This will be the child's view and it will have to be a higher functioning child.
I feel like I need to explain what DS is. I think this could be the parent's view.
And of course, I want to know how SLP's help children with DS communicate; expressively and receptively.
Although I'm going to drop the sign language part out of my question, I'm still leaving my self room to discuss it if I feel the need to.
Back to work on my question.

Fun Stuff
For fun my husband and I love to ride motorcycles . After the house is remodeled we want to build our own harley

Personal Interests
As a Sunday school teacher, I like to get my supplies from ministries that have been around for more then 20 years.
I read christian magazines . I try to find out of print bibles .
Research
When I'm doing research I use a lot of different sites. When researching about hearing I visit this site. I also visit the following site for researching.
Disipline
To keep up on what is going on in speech pathology I visit this site. The following site I found through asha . To look up disorders I visit this site.

I would like to introduce myself and give a brief introduction to my research topic.
My name is Melissa Cade, I am a mother, wife and a student. I am studying to be a speech language pathologist. I want to help people, so I chose this field. I am currently researching Down Syndrome. This disability occurs in every 1 of 800 births, so I guess you could say it is a common occurrence.
I’m trying to find out if children with Down Syndrome are aware of their disability and if language could be used to give them a better understanding of the world around them.
Let me briefly introduce you Down Syndrome:
The cause of Down Syndrome is an error in the division of cells. People with Down Syndrome have an extra part to their 21st chromosome. This error in cell division causes mild-moderate mental retardation.
There is still no known cause for the reason of this cell error.
Listed are some medical conditions associated with Down Syndrome:
Hypothyroidism, hearing loss, congenital heart disease, high blood pressure in the lungs, vision disorders and seizure disorders. These disorders vary from child to child.
Early Intervention and education is available to children with Down Syndrome. These services are provided by: special educators, speech therapist, occupational therapists and social workers.
For more information please check out the web site www.ds-health.com/down syndrome.htm. There are many links to different sites at this site.

M. Cade