Sederias, Ioana;
Ariana, Krakovich;
Stojanovik, Vesna;
Zimmerer, Vitor C;
(2024)
Overuse of familiar phrases by individuals with Williams syndrome masks differences in language processing.
Journal of Child Language
10.1017/S0305000924000436.
(In press).
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Abstract
We investigated whether individuals with Williams Syndrome (WS) produce language with a bias towards statistical properties of word combinations rather than grammatical rules, resulting in an overuse of holistically stored, familiar phrases. We analysed continuous speech samples from English children with WS (n = 12), typically developing (TD) controls matched on chronological age (n = 15) and TD controls matched on language age (n = 14). Alongside word count, utterance length, grammatical complexity, and morphosyntactic errors, we measured familiarity of expressions by computing collocation strength of each word combination. The WS group produced stronger collocations than both control groups. Moreover, the WS group produced fewer complex sentences, shorter utterances, and more frequent function words than chronological-age matched controls. Language in WS may appear more typical than it is because familiar, holistically processed expressions mask grammatical and other difficulties.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Overuse of familiar phrases by individuals with Williams syndrome masks differences in language processing |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1017/S0305000924000436 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000924000436 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that no alterations are made and the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained prior to any commercial use and/or adaptation of the article. |
| Keywords: | Williams syndrome, narrative language, grammar, usage-based-linguistics, neuroconstructivism, collocation strength |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Language and Cognition |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10194261 |
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