Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T08:13:33.879Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Morphology in Spanish-speaking children with Williams syndrome*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2017

ANTONIO BENÍTEZ-BURRACO ,
ELENA GARAYZÁBAL  and
FERNANDO CUETOS
ANTONIO BENÍTEZ-BURRACO*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Filología, Facultad de Humanidades Universidad de Huelva, Spain
ELENA GARAYZÁBAL
Affiliation:
Departamento de Lingüística General, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
FERNANDO CUETOS
Affiliation:
Departamento de Psicología, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Aims. Morphological skills in Williams syndrome (WS) are a controversial issue, particularly cross-linguistically. Methods. We assessed pluralization patterns of nouns, inflection of verbs in the past, and gender assignment, inflection, and agreement within the noun phrase in a sample of Spanish-speaking children with WS compared to typically developing (TD) children matched on mental age (VA-TD) and on chronological age (CA-TD) age. Results. Children with WS attribute grammatical gender correctly in a production task, but they have problems with inferring the referent’s sex from the gender of the noun in a comprehension task. Additionally, they correctly pluralize nouns and properly inflect regular verbs, but they have problems with irregular verbs. Our findings suggest that they have mastered the productive rules, but they perform like younger children regarding irregular items.

Keywords

William syndromeSpanishmorphologyplural nounspast verbsgender agreement
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 728 - 740
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

We wish thank the parents and children who made this study possible. Preparation of this work was supported in part by funds from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grant numbers FFI2014-61888-EXP and FFI-2013-43823-P to ABB and PSI2015-64174-P to FC).

References

references

Bellugi, U., Korenberg, J. R., & Klima, E. S. (2001). Williams syndrome: an exploration of neurocognitive and genetic features. Clinical Neuroscience Research, 1, 217–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berko, J, (1958). The child’s learning of English morphology. Word, 14, 150–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boloh, Y., Ibernon, L., Royer, S., Escudier, F., & Danillon, A. (2009). Gender attribution and gender agreement in French Williams syndrome. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 30, 1523–1540.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bromberg, H. S., Ullman, M., Marcus, G., Kelly, K., & Levine, K. (1995). A dissociation of lexical memory and grammar in Williams syndrome: evidence from inflectional morphology. Genetic Counselling, 6, 166–167.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Almazan, M. (1998). Syntax and morphology in Williams syndrome. Cognition, 68, 167–198.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clahsen, H., Ring, M., & Temple, C. (2004). Lexical and morphological skills in English-speaking children with Williams Syndrome. In Bartke, S. & Siegmüller, J. (Eds.), Williams Syndrome across languages (pp. 221–244). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demsky, Y, Gass, C., Edwards, W. T., & Golden, C. J. (1988). Optimal short forms of the Spanish WAIS (EIWA). Assessment, 5, 361–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A., Grant, J., Berthoud, I., Davies, M., Howlin, P., & Udwin, O. (1997). Language and Williams syndrome: How intact is ‘intact’? Child Development, 68, 274–290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Korenberg, J. R., Dai, L., Bellugi, U., Jarvinen-Pasley, A., Mills, D. L., Galaburda, A., Reiss, A. L. & Pober, B. R. (2008). Deletion of 7q11.23 genes and Williams syndrome. In Epstein, C. J., Erickson, R. P., & Wynshaw-Boris, A. (Eds.), Inborn errors of development: the molecular basis of clinical disorders of morphogenesis (pp. 1544–1552). New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krause, M., & Penke, M., (2002). Inflectional morphology in German Williams syndrome. Brain and Cognition, 48, 410–413.Google ScholarPubMed
Lázaro, M., Garayzábal, E., & Moraleda, E. (2013). Differences on morphological and phonological processing between typically developing children and children with Down syndrome. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 34, 2065–2074.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levy, Y., & Bechar, T. (2003). Cognitive, lexical and morpho-syntactic profiles of Israeli children with Williams Syndrome. Cortex, 39, 255–271.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levy, Y., & Hermon, S. (2003). Morphological abilities in Hebrew-speaking adolescents. Developmental Neuropsychology, 23, 61–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lukács, Á. (2005). Language abilities in Williams syndrome. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Lukács, Á., Pléh, C., & Racsmány, M. (2004). Language in Hungarian children with Williams syndrome. In Bartke, S. & Siegmüller, J. (Eds.), Williams Syndrome across languages (pp. 187–220). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lukács, Á., Racsmány, M., & Pléh, C. (2001). Vocabulary and morphological patterns in Hungarian children with Williams syndrome: a preliminary report. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 48, 243–269.Google Scholar
Mervis, C. B., & Becerra, A. M. (2007). Language and communicative development in Williams syndrome. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 13, 3–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pérez-Pereira, M. (1989). The acquisition of morphemes: some evidence from Spanish. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 18, 289–312.Google ScholarPubMed
Pinker, S., & Prince, A. (1994). Regular and irregular morphology and the psychological status of rules of grammar. In Lima, S. D., Corrigan, R. L., & Iverson, G. K. (Eds.), The reality of linguistic rules (pp. 321–352). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pléh, C., Lukács, A., & Racsmány, M. (2003). Morphological patterns in Hungarian children with Williams syndrome and the rule debates. Brain and Language, 86, 377–383.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tassabehji, M. (2003). Williams–Beuren syndrome: a challenge for genotype–phenotype correlations. Human Molecular Genetics, Special, 2, 229–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, M. S. C., Grant, J., Barham, Z., Gsödl, M., Laing, E., Lakusta, L. … & Karmiloff-Smith, A. (2001). Past tense formation in Williams syndrome. Language and Cognitive Processes, 16, 143–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar