Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:53:14.391Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prosodic abilities in Spanish and English children with Williams syndrome: A cross-linguistic study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2011

PASTORA MARTÍNEZ-CASTILLA ,
VESNA STOJANOVIK ,
JANE SETTER  and
MARÍA SOTILLO
PASTORA MARTÍNEZ-CASTILLA*
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid
VESNA STOJANOVIK
Affiliation:
University of Reading
JANE SETTER
Affiliation:
University of Reading
MARÍA SOTILLO
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Pastora Martínez-Castilla, Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, C/Juan del Rosal, No. 10, Madrid 28040, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the prosodic profiles of English- and Spanish-speaking children with Williams syndrome (WS), examining cross-linguistic differences. Two groups of children with WS, English and Spanish, of similar chronological and nonverbal mental age, were compared on performance in expressive and receptive prosodic tasks from the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech–Communication Battery in its English or Spanish version. Differences between the English and Spanish WS groups were found regarding the understanding of affect through prosodic means, using prosody to make words more prominent, and imitating different prosodic patterns. Such differences between the two WS groups on function prosody tasks mirrored the cross-linguistic differences already reported in typically developing children.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Arnold, R., Yule, W., & Martin, N. (1985). The psychological characteristics of infantile hypercalcemia: A preliminary investigation. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 279, 49–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barry, W. G. (1981). Prosodic functions revised again! Phonetica, 38, 320–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belinchón, M., Igoa, J. M., & Rivière, A. (1998). Psicología del lenguaje: Investigación y teoría [Psychology of language: Research and theory] (4th ed.). Madrid: Trotta.Google Scholar
Bellugi, U., Bihrle, A., Neville, H., Jernigan, T., & Doherty, S. (1992). Language, cognition, and brain organization in a neurodevelopmental disorder. In Gunnar, M. & Nelson, C. (Eds.), Developmental behavioral neuroscience (pp. 201–232). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bellugi, U., Lichtenberger, L., Jones, W., Lai, Z., & George, M. (2000). The neurocognitive profile of Williams syndrome: A complex pattern of strengths and weaknesses. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12, 7–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bellugi, U., Marks, S., Bihrle, A., & Sabo, H. (1988). Dissociation between language and cognitive function in Williams syndrome. In Bishop, D. & Mogford, K. (Eds.), Language development in exceptional circumstances (pp. 177–189). Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.Google Scholar
Bernicot, J., Lacroix, A., & Reilly, J. (2003). La narration chez les enfants atteints du syndrome de Williams: Aspects structuraux et pragmatiques [Narratives from children with Williams syndrome: Structural and pragmatic features]. Enfance, 3, 265–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bihrle, A. M., Bellugi, U., Delis, D., & Markis, S. (1989). Seeing either the forest or the trees: Dissociation in visuospatial processing. Brain and Cognition, 11, 37–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Catterall, C., Howard, S., Stojanovik, V., Szczerbinski, M., & Wells, B. (2006). Investigating prosodic ability in Williams Syndrome. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 20, 7–8, 531–538.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Couper-Kuhlen, E. (1986). An introduction to English prosody. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Crawford, N. A., Edelson, L.R., Plesa-Skwerer, D., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2008). Expressive language style among adolescents and adults with Williams syndrome. Applied Psycholinguistics, 29, 585–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curtiss, S. (1977). Genie: A psycholinguistic study of a modern-day “Wild-child.” New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cutler, A., & Swinney, D. (1987). Prosody and the development of comprehension. Journal of Child Language, 14, 145–167.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Díez-Itza, E., Antón, A., Fernández-Toral, J., & García-Pérez, M. L. (1998). Language development in Spanish children with Williams syndrome. In Aksu, A. Koç, Erguvanli Taylan, E., Özsoy, A. Sumru, & Küntay, A. (Eds.), Perspectives on language acquisition. Selected papers from the 7th International Congress for the Study of Child Language (pp. 309–324). Istanbul: Bogazici University Printhouse.Google Scholar
Ewart, A. K., Morris, C. A., Atkinson, D., Jin, W., Sternes, K., Spallone, P., et al. (1993). Hemizigosity at the elastin locus in a developmental disorder, Williams syndrome. Nature Genetics, 5, 11–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Face, T. L. (2001). Focus and early peak alignment in Spanish intonation. Probus, 13, 223–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Face, T. L. (2002). Local intonation marking of Spanish contrastive focus. Probus, 14, 71–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Face, T. L. (2006). Narrow focus intonation in Castilian Spanish absolute interrogatives. Journal of Language and Linguistics, 5, 295–311.Google Scholar
Francke, U. (1999). Williams–Beuren syndrome: Genes and mechanisms. Human Molecular Genetics, 8, 1947–1954.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gonçalves, O. F. (2004). Funcionamento Cognitivo e produção narrative no síndrome de Williams: Congruência ou dissociação neurocognitiva? [Cognitive functioning and narrative production in SW: Congruence or neurocognitive dissociation?]. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 4, 623–638.Google Scholar
Grant, J., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Berthoud, I., & Christophe, A. (1996). Is the language of people with Williams syndrome mere mimicry? Phonological short-term memory in a foreign language. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive, 15, 615–628.Google Scholar
Grant, J., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Gathercole, S. E., Paterson, S., Howlin, P., Davies, M., et al. (1997). Phonological short-term memory and its relation to language in Williams syndrome. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 2, 81–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, F. (1990). Williams syndrome professional symposium. American Journal of Medical Genetics, 6(Suppl.), 85–88.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. (1975). Learning how to mean. London: Edward Arnold.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornby, P. (1971). Surface structure and the topic-comment distinction: A developmental study. Child Development, 42, 1975–1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, W., Bellugi, U., Lai, Z., Chiles, M., Reilly, J., Lincoln, A., et al. (2000). Hypersociability in Williams syndrome. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(Supplement), 30–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Karmiloff-Smith, A., Grant, J., Berthoud, I., Davies, M., Howlin, P., & Udwin, O. (1997). How intact is “intact”? Child Development, 68, 246–262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Karmiloff-Smith, A., Klima, E., Bellugi, U., Grant, J., & Baron-Cohen, S. (1995). Is there a social module? Language, face processing and theory of mind in individuals with Williams syndrome. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 7, 196–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, L. (1998). Children with specific language impairment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Losh, M., Bellugi, U., Reilly, J., & Anderson, D. (2000). Narrative as a social engagement tool: The excessive use of evaluation in narratives from children with Williams syndrome. Narrative Inquiry, 10, 265–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macwhinney, B., & Bates, E. (1978). Sentential devices for conveying givenness and newness: A cross-cultural developmental study. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 17, 539–558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martínez-Castilla, P. (2009). Estudio de las habilidades prosódicas y musicales en el síndrome de Williams. [Studying prosodic and musical abilities in Williams syndrome]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.Google Scholar
Martínez-Castilla, P., Campos, R., & Sotillo, M. (2005, June). Production and perception of affective prosody in people with Williams syndrome. Poster presented at the 26th Annual Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders, Madison, WI.Google Scholar
Martínez-Castilla, P., & Peppé, S. (2008a). Developing a test of prosodic ability for speakers of Iberian Spanish. Speech Communication, 50, 900–915.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martínez-Castilla, P., & Peppé, S. (2008b). Intonation features of the expression of emotions in Spanish: Preliminary study for a prosody assessment procedure. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 22, 363–370.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCann, J., & Peppé, S. (2003). Prosody in autistic spectrum disorders: A critical review. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 38, 325–350.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nazzi, T., Paterson, S. J., & Karmiloff-Smith, A. (2003). Word segmentation by infants with Williams syndrome. Infancy, 4, 251–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peppé, S., & McCann, J. (2003). Assessing intonation and prosody in children with atypical language development: The PEPS-C test and the revised version. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 17, 345–354.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peppé, S., McCann, J., Gibbon, F., O'Hare, A., & Rutherford, M. (2007). Receptive and expressive prosodic ability in children with high-functioning autism. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 50, 1015–1028.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pinker, S. (1999). Words and rules: The ingredients of language. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Plesa-Skwerer, D., Faja, S., Schofield, C., Verbalis, A., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2006). Perceiving facial and vocal expressions of emotion in Williams syndrome. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 111, 15–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Plesa-Skwerer, D., Schofield, C., Verbalis, A., Faja, S., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2007). Receptive prosody in adolescents and adults with Williams syndrome. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22, 247–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prieto, P. (2003). Teorías lingüísticas de la entonación. In Prieto, P. (Ed.), Teorías de la entonación [Theories of intonation] (pp. 13–33). Barcelona: Ariel Lingüística.Google Scholar
Raven, J. (1982). Coloured Progressive Matrices. London: Harcourt.Google Scholar
Reilly, J., Bernicot, J., Vicari, S., Lacroix, A., & Bellugi, U. (2005). Narratives in children with Williams syndrome: A cross-linguistic perspective. In Ravid, D. & Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, H. (Eds.), Perspectives on language and language development: Essays in honor of Ruth A. Berman (pp. 303–312). Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reilly, J., Lacroix, A., Poirier, J., Bernicot, J., Bellugi, U., & Klima, E. (2005). Narrative in French and American children with Williams syndrome. Le Langage et l'Homme, 40, 11–125.Google Scholar
Reilly, J., Klima, E. S., & Bellugi, U. (1990). Once more with feeling: Affect and language in atypical populations. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 367–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roach, P. (2009). English phonetics and phonology (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scherer, K. (1986). Vocal affect expression: A review and a model for future research. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 143–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Setter, J., Stojanovik, V., van Ewijk, L, & Moreland, M. (2007). The production of speech affect in children with Williams syndrome. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 9, 659–672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sparrow, S. S., Balla, D., & Cicchetti, D. (1984). Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales. Circle Pines, MN: America Guidance ServicesGoogle Scholar
Stojanovik, V. (2010). Understanding and production of prosody in children with Williams syndrome: A developmental trajectory approach. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 23, 112–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stojanovik, V., & Setter, J. (2008). Development of prosodic abilities in children with Williams syndrome. Paper presented at 11th Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language, Edinburgh, July 28–August 1.Google Scholar
Stojanovik, V., Setter, J., & van Ewijk, L. (2007). Intonation abilities of children with Williams syndrome: A preliminary investigation. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 50, 1606–1617.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Strømme, P., Bjørnstad, P. G., & Ramstad, K. (2002). Prevalence estimation of Williams syndrome. Journal of Child Neurology, 17, 269–271.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tager-Flusberg, H., & Sullivan, K. (2000). A componential view of theory of mind: Evidence from Williams syndrome. Cognition, 76, 59–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Trevarthen, C., Aitken, K., Papoudi, D., & Robarts, J. (1998). Children with autism: Diagnosis and intervention to meet their needs (2nd ed.). London: Jessica Kingsley.Google Scholar
Udwin, O., & Yule, W. (1991). A cognitive and behavioural phenotype in Williams syndrome. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 13, 232–244.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Udwin, O., Yule, W., & Martin, N. (1987). Cognitive abilities and behavioral characteristics of children with idiopathic infantile hypercalcemia. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 28, 297–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vicari, S., Brizzolara, D., Carlesimo, G., Pezzini, G., & Volterra, V. (1996). Memory abilities in children with Williams syndrome. Cortex, 32, 503–514.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vicari, S., Carlesimo, G., Brizzolara, D., & Pezzini, G. (1996). Short-term memory in children with Williams syndrome: A reduced contribution of lexical-semantic knowledge to word span. Neuropsychologia, 34, 919–925.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Volterra, V., Capirci, O., Pezzini, G., Sabbadini, L., & Vicari, S. (1996). Linguistic abilities in Italian children with Williams syndrome. Cortex, 32, 663–677.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, P. P., & Bellugi, U. (1993). Williams syndrome, Down syndrome and cognitive neuroscience. American Journal of Deseases of Children, 147, 1246–1251.Google ScholarPubMed
Wang, P. P., & Bellugi, U. (1994). Evidence from two genetic syndromes for a dissociation between verbal and visuospatial short-term memory. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 16, 317–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wechsler, D. (2005). Escala de inteligencia Wechsler para niños-IV [Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children] (4th ed.), Corral, S., Arribas, D., Santamaría, P., Sueiro, M. J., & Trans, J. Pereña.). Madrid: TEA. (Original work published 2003)Google Scholar
Wells, B., & Peppé, S. (2001). Intonation within a psycholinguistic framework. In Stackhouse, J. & Wells, B. (Eds.), Children's speech and literacy difficulties 2: Identification and intervention (pp. 366–395). London: Whurr.Google Scholar
Wells, B., Peppé, S., & Goulandris, N. (2004). Intonation development from five to thirteen. Journal of Child Language, 31, 749–778.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wells, B., Peppé, S., & Vance, M. (1995). Linguistic assessment of prosody. In Grundy, K. (Ed.), Linguistics in clinical practice (pp. 234–265). London: Whurr.Google Scholar
Yamada, J. E. (1990). Laura—A case for the modularity of language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Zubizarreta, M. L. (1998). Prosody, focus, and word order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar