Speech timing and verbal short-term memory: Evidence for contrasting deficits in Down syndrome and Williams syndrome☆
Section snippets
Participants
Four groups of participants took part in this study, individuals with Down syndrome and individuals with the Williams syndrome phenotype of a similar average age, as well as two samples of typically developing children. The group of individuals with Down syndrome consisted of 14 children and teenagers, six male and eight female, aged between 9 years 8 months and 18 years 8 months. All individuals had confirmed trisomy 21 without mosaicism, and were recruited from local schools for children with
Preliminary analyses
The reliability of the short-term memory and articulation time measures was assessed in the whole sample of 60 individuals, prior to further separate analyses of each clinical group and their associated controls. Split-half reliability was calculated for recall of both short and long words by comparing the number of trials correct calculated across the first two and the last two trials at each span length. Spearman–Brown reliability estimates for short word and long word recall trials were .86
Discussion
The main aim of this study was to explore the impact of speech production skills on short-term memory performance among individuals of a comparable age, but with two different developmental disorders, Williams syndrome and Down syndrome. Although data from these two populations were not analysed together in the above analyses, because of the difficulties of equating these groups on any meaningful matching variable (cf. Klein & Mervis, 1999), the fact that both groups were themselves matched to
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Executive function in Down syndrome: A meta-analysis
2021, Research in Developmental DisabilitiesDevelopmental delays in phonological recoding among children and adolescents with Down syndrome and Williams syndrome
2016, Research in Developmental DisabilitiesCitation Excerpt :Hence, studies with verbal presentation and verbal recall methods are not relevant for phonological recoding. This is the case for studies that have found effects for individuals with DS (PSE: e.g., Hulme & Mackenzie, 1992; Kittler, Krinsky-McHale, & Devenny, 2004; Smith & Jarrold, 2014a, and WLE Jarrold, Cowan, Hewes, & Riby, 2004) and where no effect has been found (PSE: Varnhagen, Das, & Varnhagen, 1987), and studies that have found effects for individuals with WS (PSE: Vicari et al., 1996; and WLE: Jarrold et al., 2004). The only study, to our knowledge, with nonverbal presentation and response methods for individuals with DS found no PSE (Lanfranchi, Toffanin, Zilli, Panzeri, & Vianello, 2014).
Demonstrating the effects of phonological similarity and frequency on item and order memory in Down syndrome using process dissociation
2014, Journal of Experimental Child PsychologyCitation Excerpt :However, beyond this, evidence consistently points to a tendency toward specifically poorer vSTM in this population (Jarrold & Baddeley, 1997; Jarrold, Baddeley, & Hewes, 2000) that becomes apparent during childhood (Chapman & Hesketh, 2001). Although not strictly observed in every single individual with DS (Vallar & Papagno, 1993), this very common tendency for poorer vSTM performance is relative to performance in comparable visuospatial STM tasks and compared with matched control groups of both typically developing children and other learning-disabled groups (Brock & Jarrold, 2005; Hulme & Mackenzie, 1992; Jarrold & Baddeley, 1997; Jarrold, Cowan, Hewes, & Riby, 2004; Jarrold et al., 2000; Laws & Bishop, 2003; Vicari, Marotta, & Carlesimo, 2004). Impairments in vocabulary are also observed in individuals with DS; however, there is an apparent distinction, whereby receptive vocabulary ability is relatively less impaired (Chapman, Bird, & Schwartz, 1990; Laws, 1998), in contrast to greater impairments in expressive vocabulary (Næss, Lyster, Hulme, & Melby-Lervåg, 2011).
Grouping, semantic relation and imagery effects in individuals with Down syndrome
2014, Research in Developmental DisabilitiesLinking social behaviour and anxiety to attention to emotional faces in Williams syndrome
2013, Research in Developmental DisabilitiesCitation Excerpt :Verbal ability was assessed using the British Picture Vocabulary Scale II (BPVS; Dunn, Dunn, Whetton, & Burley, 1997). This receptive vocabulary scale has previously been used to match individuals with WS with typically developing comparison groups (e.g. Jarrold, Cowan, Hewes, & Riby, 2004; Rhodes, Riby, Matthews, & Coghill, 2011). All participants spoke fluent English and were screened in a previous study for visual deficits (e.g. strabismus, reduced visual acuity, amblyopia, reduced stereopsis).
The extent of working memory deficits associated with Williams syndrome: Exploration of verbal and spatial domains and executively controlled processes
2011, Brain and CognitionCitation Excerpt :Critically, the vast majority of those studies did not include a verbal ability matched comparison group making interpretation in relation to overall verbal ability level particularly difficult. The current report of impaired verbal short-term memory functioning, present even at relatively low loads (i.e. 3 items), supports other reports of impaired verbal functioning in WS (Barisnikov et al., 1996; Grant et al., 1997; Jarrold et al., 2004). The use of a verbal matched typically developing ability group in the current study, as in other studies which have reported significant verbal short-term memory impairments, suggest that WS is associated with verbal memory difficulties over receptive vocabulary ability.
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We are grateful to the members of the Down Syndrome Association and Williams Syndrome Foundation who took part in this work, and to the staff and pupils of the following schools for their help and cooperation: Air Balloon Infants School, Bristol; Cheddar Grove Primary School, Bristol; Fosse Way School, Midsomer Norton; Kingsweston School, Bristol; Raysfield Junior School, Chipping Sodbury; Ravenswood School, Nailsea. We thank Jon Brock for his helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. This collaboration was initiated while Nelson Cowan was supported by a Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professorship from the University of Bristol, UK, and by NIH Grant R01 HD-21338 from the United States.