Vesna Stojanovik

Social interaction deficits and conversational inadequacy in Williams syndrome

Abstract Research on social communication skills in individuals with Williams syndrome has been inconclusive, with some arguing that these skills are a relative strength and others that they are a weakness. The aim of the present study was to investigate social interaction abilities in a group of children with WS, and to compare them to a group of children with specific language impairment and a group of typically developing children. Semi-structured conversations were conducted and 100–150 utterances were selected for analysis in terms of exchange structure, turn taking, information transfer and conversational inadequacy. The statistical analyses showed that the children with WS had difficulties with exchange structure and responding appropriately to the interlocutors requests for information and clarification. They also had significant difficulties with interpreting meaning and providing enough information for the conversational partner. Despite similar language abilities with a group of children with specific language impairment, the children with WS had different social interaction skills, which suggests that they follow an atypical trajectory of development and their neurolinguistic profile does not directly support innate modularity.

Williams syndrome and specific language impairment do not support claims for developmental double dissociations and innate modularity

Abstract It has been argued that Williams Syndrome (WS) and Specific Language Impairment (SLI) show developmental double dissociations. This has been put forward as an argument that language is a module which is biologically programmed and develops independently of other cognitive abilities. However there have been very few studies which have directly compared the two populations. In this article we compare individuals with WS with individuals with SLI on a number of verbal and non-verbal standardised tests as well as on their language abilities in a narrative task. The participants with WS performed similarly to the participants with SLI on the verbal standardised tests and in the narrative task (there were no significant differences between the two groups of participants) although they performed significantly lower on the non-verbal standardised tests in comparison to the participants with SLI. The results suggest that although there are dissociations between WS and SLI in the non-verbal domain, the two populations are very similar in the domain of morpho-syntax, hence there is no support for developmental double dissociations between these two populations.

Language and Conversational Abilities in Williams Syndrome: How Good is Good?

Grammatical performance of individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) has been reported as being unimpaired, despite their comparatively low IQ and poor general cognitive ability. Specific language impairment (SLI) is often seen as the converse of WS, showing poor linguistic ability relative to level of cognitive functioning. Detailed profiles of language functioning in four children with WS and four with SLI are presented which show a much less clear-cut picture than is often portrayed and suggest that children with WS may be less linguistically able than is commonly reported. A comparison of results on standardised tests with performance in real conversations shows that not only the children with SLI but also those with WS have significant linguistic difficulties. This has clear implications for their management by speech and language therapists.

Investigating prosodic ability in Williams syndrome

This paper investigates whether people with Williams syndrome (WS) have prosodic impairments affecting their expression and comprehension of four main uses of intonation. Two adolescent males with WS were assessed using the PEPS‐C battery, which considers prosodic abilities within a psycholinguistic framework, assessing prosodic form and function in both the input and output domains. The performances of the subjects with WS were compared with control data for age and language‐comprehension matched children. The results revealed significant prosodic impairment affecting all areas of the profile. Crucially, however, different profiles of strengths and weaknesses were revealed for the two subjects. The results support the growing view that WS is a heterogeneous population in terms of linguistic abilities.

Linguistic heterogeneity in Williams syndrome

Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder resulting from a deletion on chromosome 7. A number of studies have shown that individuals with WS have a superior linguistic profile compared to their non‐verbal abilities, however the evidence has been inconclusive, as many studies have disputed such a profile. The vast majority of studies on WS have assumed a single, homogeneous WS linguistic profile in order to support various theoretical viewpoints. The present study investigated the linguistic profiles of 5 individuals with WS on a number of standardized verbal measures and in conversational settings. The results indicated substantially variable performance in all aspects of the verbal domain, which supports the view that WS, linguistically, is a rather heterogeneous condition and this should be taken into consideration when referring to it in theoretical accounts of language acquisition and debates on modularity.

Investigation of language and motor skills in Serbian speaking children with specific language impairment and in typically developing children

Specific language impairment (SLI) is usually defined as a developmental language disorder which does not result from a hearing loss, autism, neurological and emotional difficulties, severe social deprivation, low non-verbal abilities. Children affected with SLI typically have difficulties with the acquisition of different aspects of language and by definition, their impairment is specific to language and no other skills are affected. However, there has been a growing body of literature to suggest that children with SLI also have non-linguistic deficits, including impaired motor abilities. The aim of the current study is to investigate language and motor abilities of a group of thirty children with SLI (aged between 4 and 7) in comparison to a group of 30 typically developing children matched for chronological age. The results showed that the group of children with SLI had significantly more difficulties on the language and motor assessments compared to the control group. The SLI group also showed delayed onset in the development of all motor skills under investigation in comparison to the typically developing group. More interestingly, the two groups differed with respect to which language abilities were correlated with motor abilities, however Imitation of Complex Movements was the unique skill which reliably predicted expressive vocabulary in both typically developing children and in children with SLI.

Affective prosody in children with Williams syndrome

The aim of the current study was to investigate expressive affect in children with Williams syndrome (WS) in comparison to typically developing children in an experimental task and in spontaneous speech. Fourteen children with WS, 14 typically developing children matched to the WS group for receptive language (LA) and 15 typically developing children matched to the WS groups for chronological age (CA) were recruited. Affect was investigated using an experimental Output Affect task from the Profiling Elements of Prosodic Systems‐Child version (PEPS‐C) battery, and by measuring pitch range and vowel durations from a spontaneous speech task. The children were also rated for level of emotional involvement by phonetically naïve listeners. The WS group performed similarly to the LA and CA groups on the Output Affect task. With regard to vowel durations, the WS group was no different from the LA group; however both the WS and the LA groups were found to use significantly longer vowels than the CA group. The WS group differed significantly from both control groups on their range of pitch range and was perceived as being significantly more emotionally involved than the two control groups.

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.

Understanding and production of prosody in children with Williams syndrome: A developmental trajectory approach

This study investigated the development of three aspects of linguistic prosody in a group of children with Williams syndrome compared to typically developing children. The prosodic abilities investigated were: (1) the ability to understand and use prosody to make specific words or syllables stand out in an utterance (focus); (2) the ability to understand and use prosody to disambiguate complex noun phrases (chunking); (3) the ability to understand and use prosody to regulate conversational behaviour (turn-end). The data were analysed using a cross-sectional developmental trajectory approach. The results showed that, relative to chronological age, there was a delayed onset in the development of the ability of children with WS to use prosody to signal the most important word in an utterance (the focus function). Delayed rate of development was found for all the other aspects of expressive and receptive prosody under investigation. However, when non-verbal mental age was taken into consideration, there were no differences between the children with WS and the controls neither with the onset nor with the rate of development for any of the prosodic skills under investigation apart from the ability to use prosody in order to regulate conversational behaviour. We conclude that prosody is not a ‘preserved’ cognitive skill in WS. The genetic factors, development in other cognitive domains and environmental influences affect developmental pathways and as a result, development proceeds along an atypical trajectory.

Conversational success in Williams syndrome: communication in the face of cognitive and linguistic limitations

Williams syndrome (WS) is characterized by apparent relative strengths in language, facial processing and social cognition but by profound impairment in spatial cognition, planning and problem solving. Following recent research which suggests that individuals with WS may be less linguistically able than was once thought, in this paper we begin to investigate why and how they may give the impression of linguistic proficiency despite poor standardized test results. This case study of Brendan, a 12‐year‐old boy with WS, who presents with a considerable lack of linguistic ability, suggests that impressions of linguistic competence may to some extent be the result of conversational strategies which enable him to compensate for various cognitive and linguistic deficits with a considerable degree of success. These conversational strengths are not predicted by his standardized language test results, and provide compelling support for the use of approaches such as Conversation Analysis in the assessment of individuals with communication impairments.