Morphological Profile of Williams Syndrome: Typical or Atypical?

Diez-Itza, Eliseo; Martínez, Verónica; Fernández-Urquiza, Maite; Antón, Aránzazu

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-53646-0_15

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“… Losh et al (2000) , also using regression analyses, found that WS children performed at non-verbal mental age levels in the “Frog story.” They reported that CA had effects in increasing the length of narratives but not in reducing morphological errors. In previous studies, we also observed the independence of morphological errors from verbal and CA in spontaneous speech ( Diez-Itza et al, 2017 ), but individuals with WS scored at verbal-age in narrative productivity ( Shiro et al, 2016 ). Similar results concerning the length of the stories in number of propositions and utterances had been already reported for English-speaking and French-speaking school-age children where the stories of WS participants were longer than those of DS controls but comparable to mental-age matched TD controls ( Reilly et al, 1990 ; Lacroix et al, 2007 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

“…The participants had been matched in previous studies to different samples of 5-year-old typically developing children on the basis of MLU as an indicator of verbal age. In one study of spontaneous conversation ( Diez-Itza et al, 2017 ) the TD group had a mean age of 5;5 (range: 5;0–5;11), and a mean MLUw of 4,8 (range: 2;6–9;0). In another study of narratives in conversation ( Shiro et al, 2016 ), the TD group had a mean age of 5;8 (range: 5;4–6;5), and a mean MLUw of 6,6 (range: 4;7–10;3).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Explicit Oral Narrative Intervention for Students with Williams Syndrome

et al. 2018

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Narrative skills play a crucial role in organizing experience, facilitating social interaction and building academic discourse and literacy. They are at the interface of cognitive, social, and linguistic abilities related to school engagement. Despite their relative strengths in social and grammatical skills, students with Williams syndrome (WS) do not show parallel cognitive and pragmatic performance in narrative generation tasks. The aim of the present study was to assess retelling of a TV cartoon tale and the effect of an individualized explicit instruction of the narrative structure. Participants included eight students with WS who attended different special education levels. Narratives were elicited in two sessions (pre and post intervention), and were transcribed, coded and analyzed using the tools of the CHILDES Project. Narratives were coded for productivity and complexity at the microstructure and macrostructure levels. Microstructure productivity (i.e., length of narratives) included number of utterances, clauses, and tokens. Microstructure complexity included mean length of utterances, lexical diversity and use of discourse markers as cohesive devices. Narrative macrostructure was assessed for textual coherence through the Pragmatic Evaluation Protocol for Speech Corpora (PREP-CORP). Macrostructure productivity and complexity included, respectively, the recall and sequential order of scenarios, episodes, events and characters. A total of four intervention sessions, lasting approximately 20 min, were delivered individually once a week. This brief intervention addressed explicit instruction about the narrative structure and the use of specific discourse markers to improve cohesion of story retellings. Intervention strategies included verbal scaffolding and modeling, conversational context for retelling the story and visual support with pictures printed from the cartoon. Results showed significant changes in WS students’ retelling of the story, both at macro- and microstructure levels, when assessed following a 2-week interval. Outcomes were better in microstructure than in macrostructure, where sequential order (i.e., complexity) did not show significant improvement. These findings are consistent with previous research supporting the use of explicit oral narrative intervention with participants who are at risk of school failure due to communication impairments. Discussion focuses on how assessment and explicit instruction of narrative skills might contribute to effective intervention programs enhancing school engagement in WS students.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explicit Oral Narrative Intervention for Students with Williams Syndrome

et al. 2018

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“…The existence of within-domain dissociations within the linguistic domain in WS, as well as specific 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.992512 developmental trajectories and atypical features, especially in the case of morphology, has been widely discussed (Karmiloff-Smith et al, 1997;Karmiloff-Smith, 1998;Diez-Itza et al, 2017). Phonological development provides a better example of emergent complexity, i.e., the changing nature of a complex system over time, revealing principles and milestones across languages (Davis and Bedore, 2013;McLeod and Crowe, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, structural aspects of language have been described as relative strengths in the WS linguistic profile. Morphosyntactic abilities had been considered selectively spared ( Clahsen et al, 2004 ), although this assumption was challenged in several studies indicating some degree of atypical morphological processing ( Thomas et al, 2001 ; Boloh and Ibernon, 2010 ; Benítez-Burraco et al, 2017 ; Diez-Itza et al, 2017 ). Receptive vocabulary is also an area of relative strength in people with Down syndrome, but only for concrete vocabulary ( Mervis and John, 2008 ; Garayzábal et al, 2014 ; Moraleda and López, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Late phonological development in Williams syndrome

Pérez

Martínez²,

Diez-Itza³

2022

Front. Psychol.

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Williams syndrome is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder characterized by a unique phenotype, including mild to moderate intellectual disability and an uneven neuropsychological profile of relative strengths and weaknesses. Language structure components (i.e., phonology, morphosyntax, and vocabulary) have been considered an area of specific ability compared to pragmatic language use. However, research on phonological development in Williams syndrome is very scarce, and it suggests atypical patterns. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to explore the profiles of late phonological development in Spanish-speaking children, adolescents, and adults with Williams syndrome, based on the analysis of five classes of processes (Syllable Structure, Substitution, Omission, Assimilation, and Addition) in spontaneous speech. The phonological profiles of seven children (aged 3–8 years), and seven adolescents and young adults (aged 14–25 years) with Williams syndrome were compared with two normative groups of typically developing (TD) children at different stages of late phonological development (aged 3 and 5 years). The frequency of phonological processes in the group of children with Williams syndrome was similar to that of 3-year-old TD children, which suggests that they would be in the first stage of late phonological development (expansion stage). The group of older individuals with Williams syndrome showed a much lower frequency of processes, similar to that of 5-year-old TD children in the last stage of phonological development (resolution stage). However, their phonological processes appeared to be persistent and independent of chronological age. Furthermore, asynchronies in quantitative and qualitative profiles (relative frequency) indicated atypical and complex trajectories in late phonological development, which cannot be described as simply delayed or protracted. Remarkable individual differences were observed, especially in the group of adolescents and adults with Williams syndrome, although the majority of cases conformed to the modal profiles of their groups. A major tendency for Omission, including final consonant deletion, may be considered atypical and specific to Williams syndrome at all ages. The results of the present study raise the need for continued and appropriate phonological assessment and treatment for people with Williams syndrome across the lifespan.

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“…Several studies have tried to describe a linguistic profile more open to individual variability (López-Rangel, Maurice, McGillivray, & Friedman, 1992), although most seem to agree on the difficulty of grammatical aspects, lexical-semantic and pragmatic respectively (Clahsen & Almazan, 1998;Levy & Bechar, 2003;Pinheiro, Galdo-Álvarez, Sampaio, Niznikiewicz, & Gonçalves, 2010;Robinson & Temple, 2009). For example, at the morphosyntactic level, children with WS have difficulties in the use of prepositions, concordances of time, gender and number, a regulated structure and an average emission length lower than expected due to their chronological age (Benítez-Burraco, Garayzábal, & Cuetos, 2016;Diez-Itza, Martínez, Fernández-Urquiza, & Antón, 2017;Garayzábal, Sotillo, & Campos, 2001;Grant, Valian, & Karmiloff-Smith, 2002). The pragmatic component also seems to have certain particularities, especially as regards communicative exchanges.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of Receptive Vocabulary Development in Williams Syndrome

Sepúlveda¹,

López²

2020

OJML

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Although there is some consensus when it comes to establishing the lexicon as one of the strengths of language in people with Williams Syndrome (WS), little is known about its evolution throughout development and changes based on age. The objective of this study was to find out if there are differences in receptive vocabulary between childhood and adolescence and into adulthood. In this research, 19 people with WS between 6 and 20 years old, divided into two age ranges (6-11; 12-20) and matched in mental age, were evaluated through the Peabody Vocabulary Test. The results show significant differences between both groups in favor of the group with the oldest chronological age and a direct correlation between chronological age and receptive vocabulary development, regardless of mental age. These data support the natural evolution of the passive lexicon in people with WS.

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Morphological Profile of Williams Syndrome: Typical or Atypical?

Cited by 10 publications

References 46 publications

Explicit Oral Narrative Intervention for Students with Williams Syndrome

Explicit Oral Narrative Intervention for Students with Williams Syndrome

Late phonological development in Williams syndrome

Analysis of Receptive Vocabulary Development in Williams Syndrome

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