Intellectual level and the degree of intellectual disability, while of great importance, are not the only matters of concern to the parents of a Down's syndrome child: of almost equal concern are the child's temperament and amenability, how he or she fits in with the family and gets on with other people. We asked mothers about the child's personality and behaviour, behaviour problems, habits and fears, and how the mothers tried to manage these.

Personality and manageability

At each age the mothers of both groups were asked to rate their children's personality, their willingness to cooperate with reasonable requests and how easy they were to manage. The results are shown in Table 5.1. Most parents of both groups saw their offspring as having happy, easy going personalities. More than half the Down's syndrome 11 year olds were described as ‘affectionate’, ‘lovable’, ‘nice’ and ‘getting on well with people’ (as were 44% of the controls). Other positive descriptions included ‘placid’ (9%), ‘cheerful’ (9%), and ‘generous’, ‘sensitive’ and ‘fun’. At 21 years these terms were applied to 34% of the Down's syndrome youngsters, and other terms now included ‘thoughtful’, ‘interesting’, ‘more grown up’, ‘fun’ and ‘funny’. Four more were described as ‘likeable’ (these tended to be the more disabled young people). Six mothers at 11 years and nine at 21 years spontaneously described their youngsters as stubborn.