Asynchrony in the cognitive and lexical development of young children with Williams syndrome

J Child Lang. 2005 May;32(2):427-38. doi: 10.1017/s0305000904006737.

Abstract

The present study investigates whether five-to-six-year-old children with Williams syndrome (N = 8) can form new object categories based on naming information alone, and compares them with five groups of typically developing children aged 2;0 to 6;0 (N = 34 children). Children were presented with triads of dissimilar objects; all objects in a triad were labelled, two of them with the same pseudoname. Name-based categorization was evaluated through object selection. Performance was above chance level for all groups. Performance reached a ceiling at about 4;0 for the typically developing children. For the children with Williams Syndrome, performance remained below chronological age level. The present results are discussed in light of previous findings of a failure to perform name-based categorization in younger children with Williams syndrome and the persistent asynchrony between cognitive and lexical development in this disorder.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Cognition*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Language Development Disorders / diagnosis
  • Language Development Disorders / epidemiology*
  • Language Tests
  • Male
  • Vocabulary*
  • Williams Syndrome / epidemiology*