Discovering structure in auditory input: evidence from Williams syndrome.
Kids with Williams syndrome can hear pitch fine, but melody contour will not help them recognize tunes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Elsabbagh et al. (2010) tested how people with Williams syndrome hear music.
They played simple melodies and asked who could pick out the tune.
The team compared the Williams group to typically developing peers.
What they found
The Williams group could sort sounds by high and low pitch.
But they did not use the melody’s ups and downs to help name the tune.
Controls used contour cues and got better; the Williams group did not.
How this fits with other research
Martínez-Castilla et al. (2016) later tracked the same skills across ages.
They showed pitch skills in Williams syndrome grow in their own odd way.
Together the two papers warn us: good pitch sorting does not promise good melody use.
Poelmans et al. (2011) found slow-rate sound problems in dyslexia.
Both studies use the same quasi-test style, but different cues matter for each group.
Why it matters
When you test a child with Williams syndrome, check both pitch and contour.
They may ace a high-low game yet still fail to recognize simple songs.
Use pitch for teaching, but add extra prompts since contour alone will not guide them.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We examined auditory perception in Williams syndrome by investigating strategies used in organizing sound patterns into coherent units. In Experiment 1, we investigated the streaming of sound sequences into perceptual units, on the basis of pitch cues, in a group of children and adults with Williams syndrome compared to typical controls. We showed that individuals with Williams syndrome were sensitive to the same pitch cues as typical children and adults when streaming these patterns. In Experiment 2, we evaluated differences in reliance on pitch and contour cues in unfamiliar melody perception in a group of adults with Williams syndrome relative to typical control children and adults. Unlike controls who demonstrated greater proficiency when contour cues were available, adults with Williams syndrome showed no such advantage.
American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2010 · doi:10.1352/1944-7558-115.2.128