Williams Syndrome across Languages -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC page -- Table of contents -- Tables and figures -- Tables -- Figures -- List of contributors -- Williams syndrome -- References -- Part I. Phenotype and genotype in Williams syndrome -- Williams syndrome from a clinical perspective -- 1. Identifying Williams syndrome (WS): The first cases -- 2. Physical features -- 3. A link between genetics and phenotype -- 4. Neurological profile and brain characteristics -- 5. The neuropsychological profile of Williams syndrome -- General cognitive abilities -- Social abilities -- Cognitive profile -- Auditory perception -- Visual perception -- Face processing -- Numeracy -- Language: A brief overview -- Notes -- References -- Genetics of Williams-Beuren syndrome -- The common WS-deletion -- Haploinsufficiency of genes affected by the deletion as a cause for individual WS symptoms -- The WS deletion might result in the loss of regulatory elements governing flanking genes -- Molecular mechanisms of genomic rearrangements causing WS -- Atypical chromosome rearrangements associated with WS link the distal region of the common deletion with phenotypic peculiarities -- Analysis of the WS-homologous region in the mouse helps in human gene mapping and reveals the evolution of the region -- Animal models for WS -- References -- Part II. Language development and language competence in WS -- Relations between language and cognition in Williams syndrome -- Relations between language and cognition in Williams syndrome -- Performance on standardized assessments -- Differential Ability Scales -- Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test -- Mullen Scales of Early Learning -- Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (3rd edition) and Expressive Vocabulary Test -- Test of Relational Concepts -- Test for Reception of Grammar.

Correlations between language abilities and cognitive abilities -- Interrelations among language and cognitive abilities: Partial correlations -- Contribution of central processes/g to lexical and grammatical abilities -- Relations between language and cognition during early language acquisition -- Specific relations between early lexical development and cognitive development -- Grammatical ability and its relation to cognitive abilities -- Relations between level of cognitive ability, MLU, and grammatical complexity -- Relations between memory ability and grammatical ability -- Summary and conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Spared domain-specific cognitive capacities? -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The modularity of grammar - exemplified for German -- 3. Williams syndrome - a case report -- 3.1. Method -- 3.2. Results and discussion -- 3.3. Interim conclusions of the WS case study -- 4. The Vienna Down syndrome project5 -- 4.1. Method - Sentence repetition tasks -- 4.2. Results and discussion -- 4.3. Interim conclusions of the DS study -- 5. General conclusions -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- References -- Appendix -- Phonological processing in Williams syndrome -- Introduction -- Phonological processing -- Verbal short-term memory processing -- Conclusions and perspectives -- Acknowledgments -- Note -- References -- Fast mapping in Williams syndrome -- Introduction -- Method -- Participants -- Procedure -- Results -- General discussion and conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- References -- Appendix -- An example story from the fast mapping video -- Language in preschool Italian children with Williams and Down syndromes -- Review of previous studies on Italian children with WS and DS -- Study 1 -- Participants -- Vocabulary and grammatical complexity -- Sentence comprehension -- Mean length of utterance in words -- Sentence repetition.

Relations between grammar and vocabulary size -- Study 2 -- Discussion -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- Note -- References -- Language in Hungarian children with Williams syndrome -- Introduction -- Frequency and lexical organization in WS -- Regular and irregular morphology in WS -- The language of space in WS -- Study 1: Semantic fluency -- Participants -- Procedure -- Results -- Discussion -- Study 2: Picture Naming Vocabulary Task -- Participants -- Materials -- Procedure -- Results -- Discussion -- Study 3: Morphology task -- The system of Hungarian noun allomorphs -- Morphology task -- Materials -- Procedure -- Results -- Error types -- Discussion -- Study 4: Spatial postpositions and suffixes -- The language of space in Hungarian -- Participants -- Procedure -- Results -- Discussion -- Conclusions -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- References -- Lexical and morphological skills in English-speaking children with Williams syndrome -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Previous studies on morphological and lexical skills in WS -- 2.1. Morphological skills -- 2.2. Lexical skills -- 3. Participants -- 4. Past-tense formation -- 4.1. Experiment I: Existing and nonce verbs -- Results -- 4.2. Experiment II: Denominal verbs -- Results -- 5. Comparative adjective formation -- Results -- 6. Lexical skills: Naming -- 7. Lexical skills: Receptive vocabulary -- Results -- 8. A selective lexical impairment in WS -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- References -- Regular and irregular inflectional morphology in German Williams syndrome -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Subjects -- 2.1. General subject information -- 2.2. Short overview on expressive language abilities -- 3. Regular and irregular inflection in German participles -- 3.1. Elicitation of regular and irregular participles -- 3.2. Elicitation of participles for novel verbs.

4. Regular and irregular inflection in German noun plurals -- 4.1. Method -- 4.2. Results -- 4.3. Discussion -- 4.4. Problems with the prosodic constraint on German noun plurals -- 5. Summary and conclusion -- 5.1. Selective deficit or delay? -- 5.2. On the nature of the observed deficits in WS -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- References -- Appendix -- Emergent linguistic competence in children with Williams syndrome* -- A brief description of relevant aspects of Hebrew grammar and related acquisitional facts -- A longitudinal follow-up of two Hebrew speaking children with WS -- Coding and analysis -- Findings -- Summary and discussion -- Notes -- References -- Wh-questions in Greek children with Williams syndrome -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The experimental study: Eliciting wh-questions from Greek children with WS, SLI and normal development -- 2.1. Subjects -- 2.2. Experimental material and procedure -- 2.3. Results -- 3. General discussion -- Notes -- References -- The comprehension of complex wh-questions in German-speaking individuals with WS -- Introduction -- Constraints on the interpretation of complex wh-questions in German -- Methods -- Participants -- Experiments -- Results and discussion -- Control data -- WS data -- Discussion -- Summary and conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- Note -- References -- Appendix -- List of trials: Complex wh-questions -- Passives in German children with Williams syndrome -- 1. The two components of the language faculty: Rules and lexical storage -- 2. Passive - its structure and acquisition -- 3. Passive in English-speaking individuals with Williams syndrome -- 4. Passive in German children with Williams syndrome -- 4.1. Participants -- 4.2. Materials and procedure -- 4.3. Results -- 5. Discussion and summary: Deep structure strategy or actor-action-object strategy? -- Notes -- References -- Appendix 1.

Appendix 2 -- Index of tests -- Index of subjects -- The series Language Acquisition and Language Disorders.