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Purpose: Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) are recognized as having a strong desire for social relationships, yet many of them have difficulty forming and maintaining peer relationships. One cause may be impairments in pragmatic language. The current study compared the assessment of pragmatic language skills in individuals with WS using the Test of Pragmatic Language-Second Edition (TOPL-2; Phelps-Terasaki & Phelps-Gunn, 2007) and the Children's Communication Checklist-Second Edition (CCC-2; Bishop, 2003).
Method: Twenty children and adolescents diagnosed with WS were given the TOPL-2, and their parents completed the CCC-2.
Results: The TOPL-2 identified 8 of the 14 older children (ages 8-16 years) as having pragmatic language impairment and all of the 6 younger children (ages 6-7 years) as having such. In comparison, the CCC-2 identified 6 of the 14 older children and 2 of the 6 younger children as having pragmatic language impairment. The older group also had a higher composite score than the younger group on the CCC-2.
Conclusion: The TOPL-2 identified significantly more participants as having pragmatic language impairment than did the CCC-2. The TOPL-2 may be more useful in assessing pragmatic language in older children than younger children. The results offer important preliminary clinical implications of language measures that may be beneficial in the assessment of individuals with WS.
Key Words: pragmatics, assessment, Williams syndrome, developmental disabilities
Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with an estimated prevalence of 1 in 7,500 (Strømme, Bjørnstad, & Ramstad, 2002). The underlying cause of this disorder is the deletion of ,26 genes on chromosome 7 (Peoples et al., 2000). Individuals with WS are described as having mild to moderate intellectual deficits, heart disease, and distinctive facial features (Bellugi, Klima, & Wang, 1996; Mervis, 2006; Pober & Dykens, 1996). They are also noted as having an extremely friendly and outgoing demeanor that is typically referred to as hypersocial behavior (Bellugi, Lichtenberger, Jones, Lai, & St. George, 2000; Jones et al., 2000). Initial research claimed that individuals with WS had intact language in the face of severe cognitive deficits (Jackendoff, 1994; Piatelli-Palmarini, 2001; Pinker, 1999). However, more recent studies have demonstrated that there is a wide range of cognitive functioning within individuals withWS, and that language is far from intact. Approximately 75% of this population have full-scale...