Language Development in Williams Syndrome

According to the MedlinePlus online medical encyclopedia, Williams syndrome is a rare genetic condition that occurs in about one in 8,000 births. About 75 percent of those with Williams syndrome will have some level of mental retardation, and most will have a shorter-than-average lifespan due to medical complications, MedlinePlus reports. Those with Williams syndrome often have some strong abilities as well as significant weaknesses. Expressive language is often a strong skill.

Time Frame

• According to the Williams Syndrome Association website, children with Williams syndrome usually have initial speech delays in early childhood, but later it becomes an area of strength. Typically an infant with Williams syndrome will be quite social and communicative through nonverbal methods, such as facial expressions, eye contact and possibly gestures. However, many won't begin using single words until around 18 months of age, although some may use phrases at this time. Children will learn songs quickly and, by age 3, will be speaking in sentences. By kindergarten, a child with Williams syndrome will be relatively strong in speech skills.

Vocabulary

• Children with Williams syndrome can have a remarkable vocabulary, including some unusual words and phrases. Some of this can be attributed to their impressive auditory memory skills combined with their problems processing language, according to SpeechPathology.com. However, while it's common among most children that a child's vocabulary is closely in line with their cognitive abilities, this is not true of a child with Williams syndrome. It would be frustrating and unfair to expect these children to perform in all areas at the level of their vocabulary skills.

Conversational Strengths

• Children with Williams syndrome are often reported as having hyperverbal language skills, or as having "cocktail party speech" conversational skills. The term "cocktail party speech" refers to using a much greater amount of idioms, cliches and social phrases, as well as filler and irrelevant personal remarks, than other children their age.They typically have well-developed articulation and great fluency of language. They are also very socially motivated children and have good memory for people they've met, even if it was a long time previously. They also use more rhetorical questions, evaluations and explanations.

Conversational Weaknesses

• According to SpeechPathology.com, children with Williams syndrome often have difficulty with past-tense verbs, especially irregular verb forms. In particular, they over-apply the "add -ed" rule. While their narrative skills seem fairly strong, such as in grammatical and fluency aspects, they seem to struggle some with the accuracy of their content. Overall in expressive language skills, children with Williams syndrome particularly have difficulty with pragmatic skills in conversation. One example of how they may have problems is in the fact that many of the children cannot distinguish lies and jokes, usually identifying jokes as lies.

Features

• Some other elements of speech that may be problematic for children with Williams syndrome include repetitive questions and having a focus on a narrow topic of conversation. Children will sometimes struggle socially because of these idiosyncrasies.They may also develop the habit of circumlocution, where they talk around a word they cannot remember, and may go off on a related tangent. It may at times appear their conversations or answers are nonsensical or unrelated due to this pattern, according to the Williams Syndrome Association website.