My current research looks at language abilities in adults and young people who have Down syndrome, in an attempt to establish a baseline understanding of language functioning reached in adulthood and track possible changes in communication skills that may be associated with age- and Alzheimer's disease-related cognitive decline. People who have Down syndrome typically present with global language delays, which disproportionally affect selected areas of communicative skills. Adults with Down syndrome have also been reported to be at high-risk for developing early onset Alzheimer's dementia, a condition for which early diagnosis is complicated by the presence of pre-existing lifelong cognitive impairments. Recent research has however indicated that language assessments may be beneficial to improving the diagnosis of AD-related decline in this population. As part of my research, I examine comprehension and production abilities at two levels: macrostructure, which is used especially in the context of narratives to assess aspects of story (re)telling such as story structure, structural complexity, and comprehension; and microstructure, which examines the morphosyntactic and lexical elements of language such as use of morphology, syntactic constructions and lexical diversity. The research design incorporates both standardised assessments of language ability and experimental tasks that assess production(e.g. narrative retell, sentence repetition) and comprehension (e.g. comprehension of passive and active constructions). In addition, we collect measures of memory, executive functioning, adaptive behaviour, communication, and mental health via informant questionnaires.