Characteristics of Early Language Development in Children With Williams Syndrome

Williams Syndrome (WS) is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by dissonance in cognition and language. The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of early language development in WS children. Seventeen children, aged 2-5 years, diagnosed with WS in the outpatient department of child healthcare in our hospital from December 2020 to June 2023, were included in this study. In the same period, 39 children with global developmental delay (GDD) diagnosed in the outpatient department of child healthcare in our hospital were included as the control group. All children underwent cognitive and language development assessments. The language development characteristics of WS children and the differences between WS children and children with total developmental delay were observed and analyzed. WS children had weaker language comprehension ability but significantly stronger expression ability than GDD children. Intra-group comparison found that most children in the WS group expressed better than they understood; the level of expression is relatively higher than the level of comprehension. While most children in the GDD group understood better than they expressed, the level of comprehension is relatively higher than the level of expression. In addition, the language imitation ability of WS children is significantly better than that of GDD children. Our findings suggest the outstanding feature of verbal ability is expression ability and language imitation ability of WS children; the comprehension ability is still weak. These findings can help us explore intervention methods that enable WS children to reach their full potential, so as to provide guidance for the education and rehabilitation strategies for WS patients.