The aim of this research is to compare the types and functions of repetitions in two different corpora, one constituted of verbal interactions between adults and multiply-handicapped adolescents, the other between adults and young children of the same mental age as the adolescents. Our overall aim is to observe whether the communicative…

This study investigated the development of novel metaphor and metonymy comprehension in both typically developing (TD) children and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS). Thirty-one TD children between the ages of 3;09 and 17;01 and thirty-four individuals with WS between the ages of 7;01 and 44 years old were administered a newly developed task…

Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) tend to have impaired verbal short-term memory (STM), which persists even when visual support is provided for carrying out verbal tasks. Objective: The current study aims to investigate whether visuospatial support, rather than just visual, can compensate for verbal STM deficits in these individuals. The…

The ability to flexibly adapt to the changing demands of the environment is often reported as a core deficit in fragile X syndrome (FXS). However, the cognitive processes that determine this attentional set-shifting deficit remain elusive. The present study investigated attentional set-shifting ability in fragile X syndrome males with the…

Recent studies indicate that children with intellectual disabilities have functional limitations primarily in the phonological loop of working memory (Baddeley, 1986). These findings are indicative of a specific structural deficit. Building on this research, the present study examines whether it is possible to identify specific phonological…

Background: Recent studies have demonstrated that individuals with Down syndrome (DS) are poorer than controls in spatial-simultaneous tasks, but not in spatial-sequential tasks. To explain this finding, it has been suggested that the simultaneous visuo-spatial working memory deficit of individuals with DS could be due to the request for…

(Purpose) The purpose of this research model is to determine if a gifted preschool child will be less likely to experience severe emotional disturbance (SED) if he, or she, has been exposed to a curriculum that is appropriate for his, or her, mental age and an environment with true peers that is appropriate for his, or her, chronological age. …

We examined recalled narratives of boys with fragile X syndrome with autism spectrum disorder (FXS-ASD; N = 28) and without ASD (FXS-O; N = 29), and compared them to those of boys with Down syndrome (N = 33) and typically developing (TD) boys (N = 39). Narratives were scored for mentions of macrostructural story grammar elements (introduction,…

Research has shown that verbal short-term memory span is shorter in individuals with Down syndrome than in typically developing individuals of equivalent mental age, but little attention has been given to variations within or across groups. Differences in the environment and in particular educational experiences may play a part in the relative…

The aim of our study was to compare two neurodevelopmental disorders (Williams syndrome and autism) in terms of the ability to recognize emotional and nonemotional facial expressions. The comparison of these two disorders is particularly relevant to the investigation of face processing and should contribute to a better understanding of social…

Background: For pre-school children, the home literacy environment (HLE) plays an important role in the development of language and literacy skills. As there is little known about the HLE of children with intellectual disabilities (ID), the aim of the present study was to investigate the HLE of children with ID in comparison with children without…

Children with autism experience difficulties in understanding social affective cues, and it has been suggested that such deficits will generalize to music. In order to investigate this proposal, typically developing individuals and children with autism and Down syndrome were compared on tasks measuring perception of affective and movement states…

This study investigates the syntactic abilities of ten individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) (mean chronological age: 8;9 years; mean mental age: 4;8 years) and Down's syndrome (DS) (mean chronological age: 8;7 years; mean mental age: 4;6 years), matched individually on chronological age, mental age and performance IQ. The syntactic components…

Tested prefrontal and hippocampal functions in school-aged individuals with Down syndrome (DS) compared functions with those of typically developing children individually matched on mental age. Found that hippocampal and prefrontal composite scores contributed unique variance to the prediction of mental age and adaptive behavior. Noted a…

The limited literature on awareness of differences and stigma in people with intellectual disabilities is largely sociological, emphasises pathology, and has rarely used a developmental perspective with representative samples. Interviews, photographs and standardised tests were used to investigate such awareness with 77 young adults with Down…