Morphological Abilities of Hebrew-Speaking Adolescents With Williams Syndrome

In recent years research has focused on the exact nature of the linguistic skills that individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) exhibit. This work has resulted in controversial positions, with an increasing number of studies casting doubt on previous claims of superior linguistic competence for individuals with WS. This study investigated morphosyntactic knowledge in Hebrew-speaking adolescents with WS. The participants' performance was compared to 2 groups of typically developing mental age-matched controls. Participants and controls were tested on experimental tasks designed to investigate knowledge of morphology. The findings suggest that individuals with WS have good control over the basic consonantal root structure of Hebrew words. However, rather poor performance was evident on other morphological paradigms. We conclude that there is little evidence from Hebrew to support a selective preservation of grammatical competence in individuals with WS.