Core neuropsychological characteristics of children and adolescents with 22q11.2 deletion.
Kids with 22q11.2 deletion reliably show verbal>non-verbal IQ, strong verbal memory/reading, and weak visual-spatial memory—plan instruction accordingly.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team looked at kids and teens who have 22q11.2 deletion syndrome.
They gave each child a full battery of IQ, memory, reading, and spatial tests.
The goal was to map the one profile that shows up again and again in this group.
What they found
Every child showed the same pattern: talking and reading scores were stronger than puzzle and drawing scores.
Verbal memory stayed solid, but remembering pictures and places was weak.
These gaps stayed even after the researchers allowed for low overall IQ.
How this fits with other research
Ingersoll et al. (2013) later split 22qDS youths into two behavior sub-types, so the single profile here is really an average of two milder and severer forms.
Vugs et al. (2013) pooled many disorders and found medium visuospatial deficits in kids with specific language impairment; the 22qDS weakness is part of that wider pattern.
Garwood et al. (2021) saw the same verbal-over-spatial gap in preschoolers with Williams syndrome, showing the pattern starts early across genetic syndromes.
Moss et al. (2009) found verbal working-memory dips in mild ID; our target paper shows the dip is more spatial than verbal in 22qDS, a helpful contrast.
Why it matters
When you test a child with 22qDS, expect strong listening and reading but weak visual-spatial memory.
Lean on spoken instructions, books, and verbal rehearsal, and go light on purely visual tasks like spatial puzzles or unlabeled diagrams.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22qDS) confers high risk for intellectual disability and neuropsychological/academic impairment, although a minority of patients show average intelligence. Intellectual heterogeneity and the high prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses in earlier studies may have obscured the prototypical neuropsychological profile in 22qDS. METHODS: We examined intelligence, memory, reading and mathematical processes in 31 children/adolescents with 22qDS, selected for educational underachievement and an absence of psychiatric diagnoses, using standardised, psychometrically matched instruments that specify how typical a score is for a given intelligence quotient (IQ). RESULTS: Corroborating earlier findings, verbal IQ was significantly superior to performance IQ; verbal memory and basic reading were relative strengths; and visual/spatial memory was a relative weakness. All four findings transcended performance characteristics that are typical of low-IQ individuals. Rote learning yielded the highest score; reading comprehension, numerical operations and mathematical reasoning were among the lowest-performed academic domains. Albeit in the expected direction, performance in the respective components could not be clearly differentiated from what is IQ-appropriate. CONCLUSIONS: A superiority of verbal intelligence over non-verbal intelligence, relative strengths in verbal memory and basic reading, and a relative weakness in visual/spatial memory are likely to be core characteristics of children/adolescents with 22qDS, transcending performance features that are typical of individuals with low IQ.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2010 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2010.01298.x