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Why don't many people with down syndrome have an accent?

Best Answers

So there can be a distinctive speech pattern shared among many people with Down syndrome. If you are talking about regional differences, people with Down syndrome absolutely do have accents! You can go on youtube and listen to British and American people with Down syndrome to hear a pronounced difference. read more

These patients usually don't take on a specific accent — for example, they don't have a true German accent — but the general changes in their prosody, or speech, can be mistaken for a specific foreigner. A second type of FAS is not associated to any brain changes at all. These cases are often psychological in nature. read more

Intonation is one of the hardest aspects of an accent to master – many foreigners do indeed have abnormal voice rhythms compared to native speakers. Even so, the perception of the specific accent is somewhat subjective; some may think a subject with foreign accent syndrome sounds Russian; another, German. read more

Further Research

Down Syndrome Misconceptions vs. Reality
www.globaldownsyndrome.org

Why Do Some People Have an Accent?
www.linguisticsociety.org