Toddlers with Williams syndrome process upright but not inverted faces holistically.

The team watched toddlers with Williams syndrome look at faces.

They used eye-tracking to see if the kids treated upright faces as whole pictures.

They also showed upside-down faces to check if the skill was special to real faces.

The toddlers saw upright faces as whole images.

When faces were flipped, the kids stopped using the whole-face trick.

This shows early face expertise is already on board in Williams syndrome.

McCarron et al. (2013) seems to disagree. They found older people with Williams syndrome looked less at faces and missed mental states.

The clash clears up when you see the age gap: toddlers in Cashon et al. (2013) show perceptual skill, while Mary’s older group hits social-cognition limits.

Eussen et al. (2016) backs the toddler story. They saw typical attention to upside-down faces, so the upright edge is about configural skill, not general face fever.

Casey et al. (2009) adds that the extra face gaze in Williams syndrome works only for real people, not cartoons—use human faces in your lessons.

You can build on this strength. Start social games with upright human faces your client already processes well.

Pair new names or feelings with clear front-view photos before moving to cartoons or angled shots.

Watch for anxiety: Robertson et al. (2013) show anxious kids may look away from eyes, so keep the mood light and the faces friendly.