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The use of cohesive markers in narratives by children with Williams syndrome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

NANCY ELIZABETH JONES
NANCY ELIZABETH JONES*
Affiliation:
Autism Speaks and University of California, Los Angeles
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Nancy Elizabeth Jones, Autism Speaks, 5455 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 2250, Los Angeles, CA 90036. E-mail: njones@autismspeaks.org
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Abstract

This study examined how children and adolescents with Williams syndrome (WS; ages 8 years, 0 months [8;0]–14;5) used referential devices (determiners and pronouns), tense, and connectives to create cohesion in oral narratives based on a storybook compared to typically developing mentally and chronologically age-matched children. WS children used cohesive devices in narratives similarly to mentally matched children, but their performance differed from the chronologically matched children only for referential cohesion. WS children's grammatical error rates were similar to both the mentally and chronologically matched children. Implications for the characterization of the language profile of individuals with WS and considerations for the focus of future narrative research are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , March 2013 , pp. 277 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011 

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