ABSTRACT
Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder, with an incidence of 1 in 25,000, associated with learning difficulties (Greenberg, 1990). It is caused by a microdeletion on the long arm of chromosome 7 at 7q11.23, which affects one allele of the elastin gene and other contiguous genes (Ewart et al., 1993; Frangiskakis et al., 1996; Tassabehji et al., 1996). Within cognitive skills, there is a spatial disorder, for example, in drawing and relative strength in language. The development of language is also uneven, but there is dispute about the actual performance on language tasks and the best theoretical interpretation of this performance.
