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For
the past several years, we have investigated social understanding
in children, adolescents and adults with Williams syndrome. Our recent
studies have revealed a striking pattern of both strengths and weaknesses
in social perception and social cognition in Williams syndrome. |
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- Children with Williams syndrome
have difficulty understanding mental states such as false belief in
other people, as do other children with other developmental disorders;
their difficulties are related to the cognitive and language aspects
of the task and may explain some of their social difficulties.
- Adolescents also have difficulty
understanding other people’s intentions with regard to moral reasoning,
distinguishing between lies and jokes, or using information about a
person’s character in predicting behavior.
- Adults with Williams syndrome
have considerable insight into their own personal lives and understanding
their self concept.
- Adolescents and adults with
Williams syndrome perceive faces in the same way as other people do
and remember faces easily.
- People with Williams syndrome
are sensitive to other people’s emotions, but have difficulties
in labeling emotional expressions in faces and voices, performing as
other people with developmental disorders on emotion recognition tasks;
however, they are better at recognizing affective intonation in speech
when they don’t have to pay attention to the words.
- Our preliminary work involving
toddlers with Williams Syndrome suggests that while these children are
very trusting and often approach unknown adults, they seem to form secure
attachments to their mothers and close family members.
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may read more about our findings in the newsletters listed below.
Just click on the titles for complete copies of these newsletters,
which are available as .pdf files. |
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