1: Cortex. 2003 Apr;39(2):255-71

Cognitive, lexical and morpho-syntactic profiles of Israeli children with Williams syndrome.

Levy Y, Bechar T.

Psychology Department, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. msyonata@mscc.huji.ac.il
This paper investigated the cognitive, lexical and morpho-syntactic profiles of school-age Israeli children with confirmed diagnosis of Williams syndrome (WS). Children with retardation of unknown etiologies were individually matched to the children with WS. The findings suggest a cognitive profile that was similar to the profile reported for English-speaking children with WS, whose unique features were seen mainly in the discrepancy between verbal IQ and performance IQ and in relatively preserved face recognition abilities (Frangiskakis et al., 1996; Mervis et al., 1999). Contrary to previous findings, cognitive, lexical and morpho-syntactic profiles of individual children were rather similar, confirming the findings that were based on matched-pairs comparisons.

PMID: 12784888 [PubMed – in process]

2: Postgrad Med J. 2003 Apr;79(930):241

Facial and dental appearance of Williams syndrome.

Tarjan I, Balaton G, Balaton P, Varbiro S, Vajo Z.

Semmelweis University, Department of Dentistry for Children and Orthodontics and 2nd Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

PMID: 12743349 [PubMed – in process]

3: Dev Med Child Neurol. 2003 Apr;45(4):269-73

Visual and spatial working memory dissociation: evidence from Williams syndrome.

Servizio di Neurologia e Riabilitazione, IRCCS, Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesu, Santa Marinella, Rome, Italy. vicari@opbg.net

This study aimed at investigating the possible dissociation between visual and spatial working memory (WM) by means of two different experiments. In the first experiment, a WM test for visual material and for spatial information was given to a group of 202 normally developing children (chronological age 7 years 5 months, SD 1.6 years; 109 males, 93 females). Results document a different developmental trend in the two span tests. In the second experiment, we presented the same visual and spatial WM tests to a group of 13 individuals with Williams syndrome (WS), seven males and six females (chronological age mean 18 years 3 months, SD 5.1; mental age mean 7 years 2 months, SD 1.5 years), and to a control group of 26 typically developing children 14 males and 12 females matched for mental age (mean 7 years 2 months, SD 1.4). The results of this second experiment show that, on average, the spatial span obtained by individuals with WS was significantly lower than control participants, but visual span was comparable in the two groups. Our data support the hypothesis of a dissociation within the visuo-spatial sketch pad slave system in the WM model.

PMID: 12647929 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]