Areas of Strength
Children with Williams Syndrome (WS) have a very sociable nature with a heightened awareness of emotion in others. For example, they may notice subtle changes in the mood of an adult, or cry tears of empathy when another child is reprimanded. They have a strong motivation to interact socially and have good facial recognition abilities.
They often have a passion for music and a heightened musical ability. A love of, and some sense of, a strong musical ability is quite common in these children. They are not considered to have superior music ability. However, individuals with WS most often have hyperacusis which allows them to hear a wider range of sounds than the normal person. They have an excellent expressive vocabulary. It is common for children with Williams syndrome to use somewhat unusual words and phrases. This is probably due to a combination of excellent auditory memory skills and some difficulty with language processing, resulting in language being encoded in 'chunks'. They have a good long term memory for information. Once children with Williams syndrome have learned information they tend to be relatively good at retaining it. This applies to academic material as well as events, names etc. |
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Areas of Difficulty
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Children with Williams Syndrome (WS) can have a hard time seeing the 'big picture'. Individuals typically have deficits in visual-spatial abilities, visual-motor integration, adaptive behaviour and construction difficulties. Tasks requiring fine motor or visual-motor integration skills, spatial analysis, word finding, some math skills including coins/money/time concepts, and manipulating columns of numbers (such as double digit math problems) are typically difficult for students with WS.
They can have a short attention span and distractibility. Attention difficulties often lead to associated difficulties such as impulsivity which can result in the child not following directions well, getting out of their seat, and frustration. Some children with WS have favourite topics that they want to talk about with limited awareness of social cues and appropriate turn taking skills. Sometimes these topics have to do with things that make them anxious. Sometimes topics are simply areas the child is confident discussing, and the child may be relying on that topic to ensure that they will be a competent participant in the conversation. Individuals with WS have a tendency to be anxious which can sometimes cause behavior problems. Behaviour problems tend to worsen around noise related activities such as fire drills, vacuum cleaners, ceiling fans, heating or plumbing systems, and school bells due to hyperacusis. In spite of a tendency to have a very sociable nature, children with WS often have difficulty building friendships. This is probably due to difficulties around sustaining attention, and impulsivity, as well as developmental and learning difficulties. Many of the children are able to develop true friendships but this may require extensive initial help from teachers. |
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CONTRIBUTORS Strengths and Difficulties written by Amelia Hutchinson and Rebecca Sclater - Simon Fraser University Cite as:
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