Glynis Laws

Pragmatic Language Impairment and Social Deficits in Williams Syndrome: A Comparison with Down's Syndrome and Specific Language Impairment.

BACKGROUND The social communication strength of individuals with Williams syndrome described by some researchers contrasts with the picture of social difficulties painted by others. AIMS To study the pragmatic aspects of language, social relationships and unusual interests in a group of children and adults with Williams syndrome, and to compare them with a group of children and adults with Downs syndrome, children with specific language impairment, and a group of typically developing children. METHODS & PROCEDURES Parents or teachers completed the Childrens Communication Checklist or a modified version of it with wording appropriate for adults. Study groups consisted of 19 children and young adults with Williams syndrome, 24 with Downs syndrome, 17 children with specific language impairment and 32 typically developing children. OUTCOMES & RESULTS Checklist ratings for the group with Williams syndrome indicated significant levels of pragmatic language impairment, and difficulties with social relationships. Together with evidence of unusual or restricted interests, the results suggested deficits across all three domains covered by the checklist. CONCLUSIONS Despite earlier reports that emphasize a strong social interest and empathy, this study suggests that individuals with Williams syndrome have pragmatic language impairments, poor social relationships and restricted interests. Far from representing the polar opposite of autism, as suggested by some researchers, Williams syndrome would seem to share many of the characteristics of autistic disorder.

Working memory in children and adolescents with Down syndrome: evidence from a colour memory experiment

BACKGROUND This paper reports information on the visual and verbal short-term memory of individuals with Down syndrome. METHODS Colour memory in 16 children and adolescents with Down syndrome was compared with that of 16 typically developing children matched for receptive vocabulary. It was suggested that focal colours should be remembered more successfully than non-focal colours on the basis that the former could be remembered using a verbal recoding strategy. However, children with Down syndrome, for whom a deficit in verbal short-term memory makes the use of such a strategy unlikely, should remember focal and non-focal colours equally well. More importantly, if individuals with Down syndrome have more developed visual memory abilities than control children, they should outperform them in recognising non-focal colours. RESULTS Although the group with Down syndrome demonstrated significantly better Corsi blocks performance than controls, and displayed similar levels of colour knowledge, no advantage for colour memory was found. Non-focal colours were remembered by individuals with Down syndrome as successfully as focal colours but there was no indication of a visual memory advantage over controls. Focal colours were remembered significantly more successfully than non-focal colours by the typically developing children. CONCLUSION Their focal colour memory was significantly related to digit span, but only Corsi span was related to focal colour memory in the group with Down syndrome.

The attitudes and friendship intentions of children in United Kingdom mainstream schools towards peers with physical or intellectual disabilities

This study investigated typically developing childrens attitudes to physical and intellectual disabilities using the Peer Attitudes Toward the Handicapped Scale (PATHS). Participants were 202 children aged from 9 to 12 years in mainstream classes in the UK. The effect of knowledge about disabilities on attitudes was investigated by controlling whether children received a description of either a child with cerebral palsy or a child with Down syndrome before or after completing the PATHS. Childrens friendship intentions towards the described child were also elicited. More positive attitudes toward intellectual disabilities were expressed by children provided with information about Down syndrome. More negative attitudes toward physical disability were expressed by children provided with information about cerebral palsy. This pattern was mostly attributable to the responses of girls who appeared to be more sensitive to the provision of information. Only childrens attitudes to physical disability predicted friendship intentions.

Verbal deficits in Down's syndrome and specific language impairment: a comparison

BACKGROUND Downs syndrome is a chromosome disorder characterized by a range of physical and psychological conditions, including language impairment. The severity of impairment is variable, and some components of the language system appear to be more affected than others. This description could also be applied to typically developing children diagnosed with specific language impairment. AIMS To compare findings from the largely separate research literatures on these conditions, and to address the questions about whether the language pathology associated with Downs syndrome could be the same as that described as specific language impairment in typical development, and whether the two conditions could have similar causes. MAIN CONTRIBUTION Research studies suggest similar patterns of language impairment in the two populations, and some similarities in underlying processing deficits. CONCLUSIONS Future research should consider whether similarities in the language behaviours associated with Downs syndrome and specific language impairment could be related to similarities at other levels of analysis, including neurological development and genetics.

Do Children with Williams Syndrome Really Have Good Vocabulary Knowledge? Methods for Comparing Cognitive and Linguistic Abilities in Developmental Disorders.

The comparison of cognitive and linguistic skills in individuals with developmental disorders is fraught with methodological and psychometric difficulties. In this paper, we illustrate some of these issues by comparing the receptive vocabulary knowledge and non‐verbal reasoning abilities of 41 children with Williams syndrome, a genetic disorder in which language abilities are often claimed to be relatively strong. Data from this group were compared with data from typically developing children, children with Down syndrome, and children with non‐specific learning difficulties using a number of approaches including comparison of age‐equivalent scores, matching, analysis of covariance, and regression‐based standardization. Across these analyses children with Williams syndrome consistently demonstrated relatively good receptive vocabulary knowledge, although this effect appeared strongest in the oldest children.

A case of exceptional reading accuracy in a child with Down syndrome: Underlying skills and the relation to reading comprehension.

We report on a case of a girl with Down syndrome (DS), K.S., whose reading accuracy is exceptional. This ability is associated with robust phonological skills and relative strengths in visual and verbal short-term memory, articulation, and speech fluency. Although her reading comprehension is age appropriate when it comes to the retention of literal information, K.S. has some difficulties in using knowledge-based inferences in reading comprehension. Reading comprehension in that sense is at a level commensurate with her oral language skills. Her reading performance parallels that of children with reading comprehension difficulties who do not have DS. This reading profile is in contrast with claims that individuals with DS mainly use sight-word strategies in reading and shows that the phonological pathway can be highly proficient in a child with DS. However, even in a case such as K.S. where reading accuracy is good, functional literacy is constrained by limited comprehension skills.

Weak hand preference in children with down syndrome is associated with language deficits

This study explores associations between language ability and hand preference in children with Down syndrome. Compared to typically developing children of the same age, children with Down syndrome showed weaker hand preference, were less consistent in the hand they used and also less willing to reach to extreme positions in contralateral space. Within the group of children with Down syndrome, those who showed a stronger or more consistent hand preference had better language and memory skills. This association could not be explained by differences in non-verbal cognitive ability or hearing loss. These findings are discussed within the theory of neurolinguistic development proposed by Locke [Locke (1997). Brain & Language, 58, 265-326].

Early hearing loss and language abilities in children with Down syndrome

BACKGROUND Although many children with Down syndrome experience hearing loss, there has been little research to investigate its impact on speech and language development. Studies that have investigated the association give inconsistent results. These have often been based on samples where children with the most severe hearing impairments have been excluded and so results do not generalize to the wider population with Down syndrome. Also, measuring childrens hearing at the time of a language assessment does not take into account the fluctuating nature of hearing loss in children with Down syndrome or possible effects of losses in their early years. AIMS To investigate the impact of early hearing loss on language outcomes for children with Down syndrome. METHODS & PROCEDURES Retrospective audiology clinic records and parent report for 41 children were used to categorize them as either having had hearing difficulties from 2 to 4 years or more normal hearing. Differences between the groups on measures of language expression and comprehension, receptive vocabulary, a narrative task and speech accuracy were investigated. OUTCOMES & RESULTS After accounting for the contributions of chronological age and nonverbal mental age to childrens scores, there were significant differences between the groups on all measures. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS Early hearing loss has a significant impact on the speech and language development of children with Down syndrome. Results suggest that speech and language therapy should be provided when children are found to have ongoing hearing difficulties and that joint audiology and speech and language therapy clinics could be considered for preschool children.

Receptive vocabulary and semantic knowledge in children with SLI and children with Down syndrome

Receptive vocabulary and associated semantic knowledge were compared within and between groups of children with specific language impairment (SLI), children with Down syndrome (DS), and typically developing children. To overcome the potential confounding effects of speech or language difficulties on verbal tests of semantic knowledge, a novel task was devised based on picture-based semantic association tests used to assess adult patients with semantic dementia. Receptive vocabulary, measured by word-picture matching, of children with SLI was weak relative to chronological age and to nonverbal mental age but their semantic knowledge, probed across the same lexical items, did not differ significantly from that of vocabulary-matched typically developing children. By contrast, although receptive vocabulary of children with DS was a relative strength compared to nonverbal cognitive abilities (p < .0001), DS was associated with a significant deficit in semantic knowledge (p < .0001) indicative of dissociation between word-picture matching vocabulary and depth of semantic knowledge. Overall, these data challenge the integrity of semantic-conceptual development in DS and imply that contemporary theories of semantic cognition should also seek to incorporate evidence from atypical conceptual development.

Spatial representation in the drawings of children with Down's syndrome and its relationship to language and motor development: A preliminary investigation

The drawings of 17 children with Downs syndrome were compared to those produced by 17 typically developing children matched for receptive vocabulary. The children drew six arrays involving a toy bear with either a transparent or an opaque pot in three spatial arrangement: the bear was placed inside, behind or beside the pot. There was a wide variation in the childrens drawings of the bear in both groups. In the Downs syndrome group, this was unrelated to chronological age, verbal mental age, language comprehension or to fine motor skills, but these measures were significantly related in the control group. Many of the children with Downs syndrome showed poor understanding of spatial concepts which was strongly related to grammar comprebension. Those with very poor understanding adopted inconsistent strategies to represent the different spatial arrays. Strategies were not related to the maturity of the bear drawings nor to most other variables, except that children using a developmentally more advanced strategy demonstrated superior pencil control. The research supported the possibility of a different pattern to drawing development in Downs syndrome rather than a delayed version of typical development.