Pastora Martínez-Castilla

Prosodic abilities in Spanish and English children with Williams syndrome: A cross-linguistic study

The aim of this study was to compare the prosodic profiles of English- and Spanish-speaking children with Williams syndrome (WS), examining cross-linguistic differences. Two groups of children with WS, English and Spanish, of similar chronological and nonverbal mental age, were compared on performance in expressive and receptive prosodic tasks from the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech–Communication Battery in its English or Spanish version. Differences between the English and Spanish WS groups were found regarding the understanding of affect through prosodic means, using prosody to make words more prominent, and imitating different prosodic patterns. Such differences between the two WS groups on function prosody tasks mirrored the cross-linguistic differences already reported in typically developing children.

Assessing prosodic skills in five European languages: Cross-linguistic differences in typical and atypical populations

Following demand for a prosody assessment procedure, the test Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C), has been translated from English into Spanish, French, Flemish and Norwegian. This provides scope to examine receptive and expressive prosodic ability in Romance (Spanish and French) as well as Germanic (English and Flemish) languages, and includes the possibility of assessing these skills with regard to lexical tone (Norwegian). Cross-linguistic similarities and differences relevant to the translation are considered. Preliminary findings concerning 8-year-old neurotypical children speaking the five languages are reported. The appropriateness of investigating contrastive stress in Romance as well as Germanic languages is considered: results are reported for assessing this skill in Spanish and English speakers and suggest that in Spanish it is acquired much later than in English. We also examine the feasibility of assessing and comparing prosodic disorder in the five languages, using assessments of prosody in Spanish and English speakers with Williams syndrome as an example. We conclude that, with caveats, the original design of the UK test may indicate comparable stages of prosodic development in neurotypical children and is appropriate for the evaluation of prosodic skills for adults and children, both neurotypical and with impairment, in all five languages.

Developing a test of prosodic ability for speakers of Iberian Spanish

In the absence of a Spanish prosody assessment procedure, an English one (Profiling Elements of Prosodic Systems-Children: PEPS-C) has been adapted for use with Iberian Spanish speakers. The paper describes the scope, principles and methods of the test and the modifications other than lexical translation that were required to produce a Spanish procedure. Findings from the first studies of data collected using the Spanish test are briefly considered: these suggest crosslinguistic parallels and English/Spanish differences in adult prosodic ability. Lengthier consideration is given to prosodic data from Spanish children and the use of prefinal contrastive accent in the two languages. We conclude that the test is a feasible and valid instrument for assessing Spanish prosodic ability and indicate possible directions for further research.

Intonation features of the expression of emotions in Spanish : preliminary study for a prosody assessment procedure

This study aimed to find out what intonation features reliably represent the emotions of “liking” as opposed to “disliking” in the Spanish language, with a view to designing a prosody assessment procedure for use with children with speech and language disorders. 18 intonationally different prosodic realisations (tokens) of one word (limón) were recorded by one native Spanish speaker. The tokens were deemed representative of two categories of emotion: liking or disliking of the taste “lemon”. 30 native Spanish speakers assigned them to the two categories and rated their expressiveness on a six‐point scale. For all tokens except two, agreement between judges as to category was highly significant, some tokens attracting 100% agreement. The intonation contours most related to expressiveness levels were: for “liking”, an inverted U form contour with exaggerated pitch peak within the tonic syllable; and for “disliking”, a flat melodic contour with a slight fall.

Prosodic abilities of Spanish-speaking adolescents and adults with Williams syndrome

In spite of the relevant role of prosody in communication, and in contrast with other linguistic components, there is paucity of research in this field for Williams syndrome (WS). Therefore, this study performed a systematic assessment of prosodic abilities in WS. The Spanish version of the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech—Communication battery was administered to 27 Spanish-speaking adolescents and adults with WS and a control group of 54 typically developing participants matched for chronological age (CA). Participants with WS presented prosodic deficits, relative to their CA, to comprehend and express prosodic cues both on a function and a form level. These difficulties were mainly due to their cognitive impairments. In addition, the areas of understanding and expressing the prosodic function of segmentation and the expression of the nonfinal contrastive focus were found to be particularly impaired in WS.

Pitch Processing in Children with Williams Syndrome: Relationships between Music and Prosody Skills

Williams syndrome (WS), a genetic neurodevelopmental disorder, has been taken as evidence that music and language constitute separate modules. This research focused on the linguistic component of prosody and aimed to assess whether relationships exist between the pitch processing mechanisms for music and prosody in WS. Children with WS and typically developing individuals were presented with a musical pitch and two prosody discrimination tasks. In the musical pitch discrimination task, participants were required to distinguish whether two musical tones were the same or different. The prosody discrimination tasks evaluated participants’ skills for discriminating pairs of prosodic contours based on pitch or pitch, loudness and length, jointly. In WS, musical pitch discrimination was significantly correlated with performance on the prosody task assessing the discrimination of prosodic contours based on pitch only. Furthermore, musical pitch discrimination skills predicted performance on the prosody task based on pitch, and this relationship was not better explained by chronological age, vocabulary or auditory memory. These results suggest that children with WS process pitch in music and prosody through shared mechanisms. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of cognitive modularity. The implications of these results for intervention programs for individuals with WS are also discussed.

Cognición social en el síndrome de Williams

Resumen Frente a una concepción neuropsicológica estática, que entiende la arquitectura cognitiva como un conjunto de sistemas específicos de funcionamiento independiente de origen innato, este trabajo asume una perspectiva neu-roconstructivista, que contempla la especialización y localización progresiva de las funciones, enfatizando la necesidad de atender desde el desarrollo a los distintos niveles de explicación del funcionamiento psicológico, y en el que la relación con las bases genéticas o neurobiológicas también va a estar mediada por un ambiente dinámico. Desde estos argumentos se revisa la evidencia experimental sobre el funcionamiento de las personas con síndrome de Williams (SW) en distintos aspectos vinculados con la cognición social (competencias mentalistas, procesamiento de rostros y lenguaje). Se concluye en contra de la propuesta de que el perfil psicológico de las personas con SW evidencia la existencia de un módulo para la cognición social, se sugiere la necesidad de atender a las trayectorias de desarrollo y se plantean algunas implicaciones del modelo para la intervención psicológica.

Cross-linguistic expression of contrastive accent: Clinical assessment in Spanish and English.

Well-documented Romance-Germanic differences in the use of accent in speech to convey information-structure and focus cause problems for the assessment of prosodic skills in populations with clinical disorders. The strategies for assessing the ability to use lexical and contrastive accent in English and Spanish are reviewed, and studies in the expression of contrastive accent in Spanish- and English-speaking typically-developing children are described. These studies used similar tasks requiring pre-final contrastive accent. Results were, however, strikingly different (English > Spanish). Using the same tasks, studies of English-speaking individuals with autism and Williams syndrome showed marked difficulty with the expression of contrastive stress, but the use of such tasks with Spanish speakers may merely reflect cross-linguistic differences. This study presents the methodology and results of these tasks, and suggests alternative methods of assessing the ability to discern and use contrastive accents in Spanish.

Assessment of Spanish prosody in clinical populations: The case of Williams syndrome

We begin by reviewing ways of assessing prosody in Spanish-speaking individuals with disorders of different aetiologies. In Spanish, only one test has been specifically designed for prosody assessment in clinical populations: The Iberian Spanish version of the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C) test. Building on our previous work, we describe the test and summarize results found with typically developing Spanish and Englishspeaking individuals. The use of the Spanish PEPS-C test in clinical populations is exemplified with the case of Williams syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder. By discussing the relevance of the results found both in Williams syndrome and typical development we highlight developmental patterns and cross-linguistic differences that should be taken into account when assessing Spanish prosody in clinical settings.

Environmental sound recognition by timbre in children with Williams syndrome

Anecdotal reports have described children with Williams syndrome (WS) as presenting outstanding skills for recognizing environmental sounds by their timbre. This has led to suggest that the skills for environmental sound recognition by timbre are highly developed in WS. Furthermore, the term hypertimbria has been proposed to refer to this feature. However, no academic research has assessed these skills in WS. This study therefore aimed to contrast the reports on the highly developed skills for environmental sound recognition by timbre in children with WS. An environmental sound recognition task was administered to children with WS, children with Down syndrome of the same chronological age and cognitive level, and chronological age-matched typically developing children. Participants with WS performed significantly lower than their typically developing peers and no significant differences were found between the WS and Down syndrome groups. Unlike previous reports, this study points out that in WS environmental sound recognition by timbre does not constitute a phenotypic strength either in absolute or relative terms. Results suggest that children with WS do not present hypertimbria or preserved skills for timbre recognition. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of cognitive modularity.