Atypical development of language and social communication in toddlers with Williams syndrome

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder which results in an uneven cognitive profile. Despite superior language compared to other syndromes in the phenotypic outcome, toddlers with WS are as delayed in their language onset and early linguistic development as are toddlers with other syndromes. The cause of this delay in WS is as yet unknown. In a series of experiments, we examined whether atypical socio‐interactive precursors to language could contribute to the explanation of the late language onset and atypical developmental pathways observed in WS. Experiment 1 showed that despite superficially good social skills, toddlers with WS were only proficient at dyadic interaction. They were impaired in triadic interaction, essential for the referential uses of language, and showed none of the correlations between socio‐interactive markers and language seen in the typical controls. Experiment 2 focused on the comprehension and production of referential pointing. Again, the WS group was impaired, despite vocabulary levels higher than those of typically developing controls. Finally, Experiment 3 examined fine motor skills. The WS lack of pointing could not be explained in terms of motor impairments, since the WS toddlers were proficient at fine motor control, such as the pincer grip. Overall, our data indicate that the early stages of WS language follow an atypical pathway. The findings challenge the frequent claims in the literature that individuals with Williams syndrome have preserved linguistic and social skills.     

Distinctions Among Stigmatized Groups1

This research investigated how individuals classify and distinguish among stigmatized groups. In Study 1, participants sorted 54 stigmas based on perceived similarity and then provided evaluations. Cluster analysis revealed 7 stigma clusters, including physical disability, mental disability, economically disadvantaged, social deviants, physical appearance, sexual identity, and racial identity. Multidimensional scaling showed that the stigmas differed on dimensions of social undesirability, controllability, and general pity. In Study 2, participants provided evaluation ratings of stigmas across 6 situations. Results confirmed the validity of the 7‐cluster solution.     

Sentence context modulates visual word recognition and translation in bilinguals

The influence of sentence context constraint on subsequent processing of concrete and abstract cognates and noncognates was tested in three experiments. Target words were preceded by a predictive, high constraint sentence context, by a congruent, low constraint sentence context, or were presented in isolation. Dutch-English bilinguals performed lexical decision in their second language (L2), or translated target words in forward (from L1 to L2) or in backward (from L2 to L1) direction. After reading a high constraint sentence context, cognate and concreteness effects disappeared in lexical decision and strongly decreased in both translation tasks. In contrast, low constraint sentences did not influence cognate and concreteness effects. These results suggest that semantically rich sentences modulate cross-language interaction during word recognition and word translation.     

The link between maternal interaction style and infant action understanding

The present study investigates whether the maternal interaction style is related to 6-month-old infants' action interpretation. We tested 6-month-olds ability to interpret an unfamiliar human action as goal-directed using a modified version of the paradigm used by Woodward, A. L. (1999). Infant's ability to distinguish between purposeful and non-purposeful behaviours. Infant Behavior & Development, 22, 145-160 and Király, I., Jovanovic, B., Prinz, W., Aschersleben, G., & Gergely, G. (2003). The early origins of goal attribution in infancy. Consciousness & Cognition, 12, 732-751. Additionally, all infants and their mothers participated in a free play situation to assess maternal interaction styles as measured by the CARE-Index. According to mothers' distinct interaction styles, infants were divided into three groups. Results suggest that at 6 months of age infants of mothers with a modestly controlling interaction style are better at interpreting a human action as goal-directed than infants of sensitive and relative unresponsive mothers. The ability to understand human action as goal-directed might be a corollary of an adaptive strategy in infancy.     

Connectionist models of artificial grammar learning: what type of knowledge is acquired?

Two experiments are presented that test the predictions of two associative learning models of Artificial Grammar Learning. The two models are the simple recurrent network (SRN) and the competitive chunking (CC) model. The two experiments investigate acquisition of different types of knowledge in this task: knowledge of frequency and novelty of stimulus fragments (Experiment 1) and knowledge of letter positions, of small fragments, and of large fragments up to entire strings (Experiment 2). The results show that participants acquired all types of knowledge. Simulation studies demonstrate that the CC model explains the acquisition of all types of fragment knowledge but fails to account for the acquisition of positional knowledge. The SRN model, by contrast, accounts for the entire pattern of results found in the two experiments.

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Salient Intergroup Ideology and Intergroup Interaction

ABSTRACT— Two experiments examined how rendering different intergroup ideologies salient affects dominant- and minority-group members' behavior during, and experience of, intergroup interactions. We hypothesized that ideologies that encourage an outward focus on appreciating out-group members' distinctive qualities (multiculturalism) would have more positive implications than ideologies that encourage a self-control focus on ignoring social categories and avoiding inappropriate behavior (color blindness and antiracism). As predicted, in both ostensible ( Study 1 ) and actual face-to-face ( Study 2 ) intergroup interactions, the multicultural ideological prompt led dominant- and minority-group members to adopt a more outward focus and hence to direct more positive other-directed comments to an interaction partner who was a member of an out-group. In contrast, the color-blind prompt fostered a prevention orientation in dominant-group members that led them to express negative affect toward their out-group interaction partner. The antiracist prompt had no consistent effects. Implications for efforts to improve intergroup relations are discussed.     

Implicit learning of semantic category sequences: response-independent acquisition of abstract sequential regularities

Through the use of a new serial naming task, the authors investigated implicit learning of repeating sequences of abstract semantic categories. Participants named objects (e.g., table, shirt) appearing in random order. Unbeknownst to them, the semantic categories of the objects (e.g., furniture, clothing) followed a repeating sequence. Irrespective of whether participants were instructed to attend to the categories (Experiment 1) or whether no mention was made of the categories (Experiments 2 and 3), naming latencies reliably increased when the repeating category sequence was switched to a random sequence. This was the case even for participants showing no explicit knowledge in reproduction and recognition tests. Results indicate that abstract sequential structures are learned implicitly, even if neither the surface stimuli nor the responses follow a sequence.     

Working With Immigrant Students in Schools: The Role of School Counselors in Building Cross‐Cultural Bridges

School counselors are poised to play a significant role within comprehensive school counseling programs in addressing the needs of immigrant children in schools. The authors describe how school counselors can have a positive impact on the adjustment of immigrant students by building cross‐cultural bridges through the use of cross‐cultural simulations and activities. Los consejeros escolares se encuentran en una buena posición para jugar un papel significativo dentro de los programas exhaustivos de consejería escolar que tratan las necesidades de los niños inmigrantes en las escuelas. Los autores describen cómo los consejeros escolares pueden tener un impacto positivo en la adaptación de los alumnos inmigrantes por medio de la construcción de puentes interculturales a través del uso de simulaciones y actividades interculturales.     

Traces of the Person: Max Scheler’s and Paul Ricoeur’s Attempts on Personal Ethics

To encounter a fellow-being does not mean only to see her face, to notice the color of her eyes, but to meet her eyes and to be addressed by her. Who one is irreducible to any objective property or value, and likewise cannot be comprehended through propositional statements in the manner of “talking about …” something. Rather, such comprehension demands an account of giving way to the appearance of the other as other. This account, prominently linked to E. Levinas’ “ethics as first philosophy,” has also been developed as phenomenological personalism. While Max Scheler developed his “Ethical Personalism” within his material Value Ethics, his Philosophy of Fellow-Feeling and in his late Philosophical Anthropology of human spirit, Paul Ricoeur develops his personalism through different approaches: from his early attempts on need and desire as the affective basis of our values to the perspective on the particular way we lead our lives in narratively constituting our personal identity, and finally to his concept of recognition. Reconstructing personalism as a philosophy of discovering the other person in her otherness and as a concept of social practice are the aims of this paper.