Psicothema was founded in Asturias (northern Spain) in 1989, and is published jointly by the Psychology Faculty of the University of Oviedo and the Psychological Association of the Principality of Asturias (Colegio Oficial de Psicología del Principado de Asturias).
We currently publish four issues per year, which accounts for some 100 articles annually. We admit work from both the basic and applied research fields, and from all areas of Psychology, all manuscripts being anonymously reviewed prior to publication.
Psicothema, 2010. Vol. Vol. 22 (nº 4). 732-738
Elena Garayzábal Heinze y Fernando Cuetos Vega
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid y * Universidad de Oviedo
Las personas con síndrome de Williams, un trastorno genético del neurodesarrollo, se caracterizan por buenas habilidades lingüísticas en comparación con otras habilidades cognitivas, enmarcadas en un cuadro de discapacidad intelectual. Poseen un buen vocabulario y utilizan con frecuencia palabras raras o de escaso uso. Eso ha llevado a algunos autores a considerar que estas personas poseen un sistema léxico-semántico peculiar y diferente del de las personas con desarrollo típico. En este estudio se pone a prueba esta hipótesis comparando la ejecución de un grupo de jóvenes con SW con otro grupo control en varias tareas léxico-semánticas, entre ellas las de fluidez semántica y fonológica. Los resultados muestran que el sistema léxico-semántico de las personas con SW no parece ser diferente al de los controles, pues los ejemplares que producen son similares a los de los sujetos control, tanto en lo que se refiere a la frecuencia de las palabras, como a su longitud o a la tipicidad de los ejemplares de las categorías.
Lexico-semantic processing in Williams syndrome. People with Williams syndrome, a neurodevelopmental genetic syndrome, typically have good language skills as compared to other cognitive abilities, as far as intellectual disability is concerned. They have a large vocabulary and they frequently use uncommon or rarely-used words. This has led some authors to consider that they have a peculiar semantic system, different from that of people with typical development. In this study, we tested this hypothesis by comparing the performance of a group of young adults with Williams syndrome to a control group using various lexico-semantic tasks, including semantic and phonological fluency. The results indicate that the semantic system of people with Williams syndrome does not seem to differ much from those in the control group because the words they produced were similar to those of the control group with regard to word frequency, length or the typicality of the responses within the categories.
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