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Objects, motions, and paths: spatial language in children with Williams syndrome.

Barbara Landau1, Andrea Zukowski

  • 1Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. landau@cogsci.jhu.edu

Developmental Neuropsychology
|May 6, 2003
PubMed
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Children with Williams syndrome (WS) demonstrate strong spatial language skills, despite nonlinguistic spatial deficits. Their language abilities suggest spatial cognition is not solely dependent on underlying spatial knowledge.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Spatial language acquisition is theorized to depend on early nonlinguistic spatial knowledge.
  • Williams syndrome (WS) presents with significant nonlinguistic spatial deficits and relatively preserved language abilities.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between nonlinguistic spatial knowledge and spatial language acquisition.
  • To examine spatial language production in children with Williams syndrome.

Main Methods:

  • Twelve children with WS, 12 mental-age matched typically developing children, and 12 adults described 80 videotaped motion events.
  • Analysis focused on semantic and syntactic encoding of spatial elements like Figure, Ground, Manner, and Path.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Children with WS exhibited robust control over linguistic components of motion events.
  • While generally spared, Path expression in children with WS was less stable in contexts linked to spatial deficits.
  • Spatial language abilities in WS were largely preserved despite nonlinguistic spatial impairments.

Conclusions:

  • Findings indicate strong preservation of formal spatial linguistic knowledge in Williams syndrome.
  • Nonlinguistic spatial deficits appear to have minimal impact on spatial language development in WS.
  • The study has implications for understanding the interplay between spatial language and broader spatial cognition.