Narrative competence in Spanish-speaking adults with Williams syndrome

Résumé 0

"Background: Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder associated with intellectual disability and characterised by displaying an atypical neuropsychological profi le, with peaks and valleys, where language skills seem better preserved than non-verbal intelligence. Method: This study researches the narrative competence of nine Spanish-speaking adults with WS. Oral narratives were elicited from a silent fi lm, and narrative coherence was analysed as a function of sequential order of the events narrated at three structure levels, while narrative cohesion was assessed through the frequency of use and type of discourse markers. Results: WS subjects were able to remember a signifi cant proportion of the events from the fi lm, but coherence of narratives, i.e., sequential order of events, was more impaired. Consistently with their linguistic abilities, cohesion of narratives was better preserved, as they used discourse markers to introduce a high proportion of events. Conclusions: Construction of mental models of the narratives may be constrained in WS by non-verbal cognitive abilities, but narrative competence is also determined by textual pragmatic abilities to organize discourse, which should be addressed by specifi c intervention in narrative competence."