The development of route learning in Down syndrome, Williams syndrome and typical development: investigations with virtual environments

Abstract

The ability to navigate new environments has a significant impact on the daily life and independence of people with learning difficulties. The aims of this study were to investigate the development of route learning in Down syndrome (N = 50), Williams syndrome (N = 19), and typically developing children between 5 and 11 years old (N = 108); to investigate use of landmarks; and to relate cognitive functions to route-learning ability in these groups. Overall, measures of attention and long-term memory were strongly associated with route learning, even once non-verbal ability was controlled for. All of the groups, including 5-to 6-year-old TD children, demonstrated the ability to make use of all landmark types to aid route learning; those near junctions, those further from junctions, and also distant landmarks (e.g. church spire, radio mast). Individuals with WS performed better than a matched subset of TD children on more difficult routes; we suggest that this is supported by relatively strong visual feature recognition in the disorder. Participants with DS who had relatively high levels of non-verbal ability performed at a similar level to TD participants. Research highlights• Individuals with Williams syndrome performed better than a matched subset of typically developing children on more difficult routes.• Measures of attention and long-term memory were strongly associated with route learning.

Route‐learning strategies in typical and atypical development; eye tracking reveals atypical landmark selection in Williams syndrome

“…; Purser et al . ). Thus, participants were forced to rely on the information preceding the junction to make their decision, which could have hindered the WS group.…”

“…Both Purser et al . () and Broadbent et al . (), who also used distant landmarks only, suggest that their WS group were using a visual recognition view‐matching strategy in which they evaluate whether the visual scene (including landmarks) had been seen before and is part of the correct route, rather than pairing a landmark with a directional decision (e.g.…”

“…; Purser et al . ), but we do not know whether the weighting of these landmarks relative to proximal ones is any different from the typical population. Given that distant landmarks are only used in the typical population from seven years of age, we predict: (5) minimal attention to distant landmarks in WS.…”

“…Purser et al . () demonstrated that participants with WS could learn a six‐turn route with three distant landmarks only. However, whilst TD 5‐ to 11‐year‐olds showed a detriment in the distant landmark only condition relative to conditions with 16 proximal landmarks only, this impairment was not evident in the WS group, which is suggestive of atypical landmark use in WS.…”

Developing Navigational Services for People with Down's Syndrome

“…It was found that participants in both groups could learn routes, but those with ID often could not find the shortest path. Other uses of virtual environment based experiments include the work of Purser et al [6]. The authors investigated the development of route learning and the use of landmarks in DS, Williams syndrome (WS), and typically developing children between the ages of 5 and 11.…”