Grammatical gender vs. natural gender in French Williams syndrome.

Laure et al. (2010) looked at how teens and adults with Williams syndrome handle French grammar. French nouns have a gender: every word is either masculine or feminine. The team asked who uses the right gender and who thinks about real-life sex (boy vs girl) when they pick words.

They compared a small Williams group to two typical groups matched for mental age and for calendar age. Everyone gave language samples and answered short tasks. The study was a case series, so each person served as their own mini-test.

People with Williams syndrome leaned hard on the masculine form. They used it even when the word was feminine, just like younger mental-age peers.

Unlike same-age peers, they rarely said “this word is feminine because it means a girl.” Age did not help; older Williams participants did not grow out of the pattern. The result was flat across the group.

Tuzzi (2009) saw a different grammar story in Italian autism. That team mined long written texts and found odd word patterns, not simple over-use of one gender. Both studies look at grammar in developmental disorders, but one shows rigid defaults while the other shows scattered differences.

Congiu et al. (2016) tested advanced language in Spanish-speaking youth with autism. Their tool caught theory-of-mind slips, not grammar slips. Together the three papers warn us: language breaks in different spots for different diagnoses.

Nevin et al. (2005) asked parents about sexuality concerns in high-schoolers with autism. Parents worried most about boy-girl behavior, not grammar. Laure’s work says teens with Williams syndrome also lag on linking sex to words. The double hint: sex-based concepts stay hard for many developmental groups, yet each group needs its own check.

If you test French speakers with Williams syndrome, do not wait for them to “grow into” gender rules. Add clear visual cues for masculine vs feminine nouns right now. Use errorless teaching and plenty of repetition. Check other languages you serve—Spanish, Italian, Arabic—because gender marking may stay stubborn there too.