Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic syndrome. As with all rare syndromes, obtaining adequately powered sample sizes is a challenge. Here we present legacy data from seven UK labs, enabling the characterisation of cross-sectional and longitudinal developmental trajectories of verbal and non-verbal development in the largest sample of…

Background: Developmental research provides considerable evidence of a strong relationship between verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) and mathematics ability across age groups. However, little is known about how components of WM (i.e., short-term storage, processing speed, the central executive) might relate to mathematics sub-categories…

The ability to deceive is a key milestone in social cognitive development for typically developing individuals. In this scoping review, we systematically searched the literature to summarise research on deceptive behaviour in autism and identify gaps in knowledge. Across the 28 studies identified, three main themes were synthesised, with seven…

Background: School attainment tests and Cognitive Abilities Tests are used in the United Kingdom to set targets for educational outcome. Whilst these are good predictors, they depend not only on basic ability but also on learnt knowledge and skills, such as reading. Method and Aims: VESPARCH is an online group test of verbal and spatial reasoning,…

The size of an individual's phonological similarity effect for visually presented material is assumed to reflect his or her ability to recode, and by implication rehearse, information in verbal short-term memory. Many studies have shown that under these conditions, the size of this effect interacts with age, tending to be nonsignificant in…

Experienced teachers have long asserted that children blind from retinoblastoma (Rb), a rare cancer of the eye, are of above average intelligence. To test this hypothesis, standardized verbal intelligence tests were administered to a sample of 85 children and adults, all diagnosed with the early infancy form of this condition. For 42 of the Rb…

The aim of this study was to relate discharge King's Outcome Scale for Childhood Head Injury (KOSCHI) category to injury severity and detailed outcome measures obtained in the first year post-traumatic brain injury (TBI). We used a prospective cohort study. Eighty-one children with TBI were studied: 29 had severe, 15 moderate, and 37 mild TBI. The…

In this study 141 British parents estimated their own, and one of their children's IQ on their overall intelligence as well as on Gardner's (1983) [Gardner, H. (1983). "Frames of the mind: The theory of multiple intelligences." New York: Basic Books.] seven multiple ''intelligences''. Replicating previous studies, fathers gave higher…

The contributions of counterfactual conditional reasoning (CCR), belief understanding, and inferential reasoning to the performance of children with autism (CWA) on standard false belief tasks were investigated. To assess the roles of these three factors, we compared the performance of CWA on physical-state CCR tasks (which do not require either…

Major visuospatial and verbal abilities were assessed for 197 10-year-olds in Hong Kong and 170 10-year-olds in the United Kingdom. The Hong Kong subjects resembled their Japanese counterparts in having high Searman's "g," exhibiting abstract reasoning ability, high spatial ability, high perceptual speed, and low word fluency. (SLD)