Purser, Harry RM;
Stojanovik, Vesna;
Jarrold, Christopher;
Farran, Emily K;
Thomas, Michael SC;
Van Herwegen, Jo;
(2025)
Developmental trajectories of grammatical comprehension in individuals with Williams syndrome.
First Language
, 45
(4)
pp. 476-495.
10.1177/01427237251326625.
Preview |
Text
Van Herwegen_purser-et-al-2025-developmental-trajectories-of-grammatical-comprehension-in-individuals-with-williams-syndrome.pdf Download (412kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Despite earlier claims that language abilities are intact in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS), many studies have shown that language development is often delayed and atypical, that is, it develops in line with different cognitive abilities compared to typically developing populations. It is unclear, however, whether general cognitive development predicts language comprehension in WS. The current study is the first to examine the development of grammatical comprehension in a large group (N = 58) of individuals with WS aged 5 to 21 years old. Grammatical comprehension is key to a person’s ability to understand what is being said and engage in successful social interaction. Using cross-sectional developmental trajectories, performance on the Test for the Reception of Grammar was shown to increase with chronological age and performance was predicted by vocabulary scores, but not non-verbal ability. In addition, there was no meaningful difference between items that contained spatial language and similar grammatical constructions that did not contain spatial language and performance on both types of expressions was similarly predicted by vocabulary scores. Overall, these results show that grammatical development in WS is delayed but not atypical in its relationship to vocabulary.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Developmental trajectories of grammatical comprehension in individuals with Williams syndrome |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/01427237251326625 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237251326625 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Social Sciences, Psychology, Developmental, Linguistics, Language & Linguistics, Psychology, Williams syndrome, grammar, development, cross-sectional, developmental trajectories, LANGUAGE-ACQUISITION, DOWNS-SYNDROME, CHILDREN, ABILITIES, PROFILE, COMMUNICATION, IMPAIRMENT, STRENGTHS, RULES |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Psychology and Human Development |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10217692 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
