LANGUAGE AND WILLIAMS SYNDROME

Most aspects of human life—from gene expression, to brain structure/function, to underlying linguistic and cognitive processes, through to overt language production and comprehension behaviors—are the result of dynamic developmental processes, in which timing plays a crucial role. So, the study of language acquisition in developmental disorders such as Williams syndrome (WS) needs to change from the still widely held view that developmental disorders can be accounted for in terms of spared versus impaired modules to one that takes serious account of the fact that the infant cortex passes from an initial state of high regional interconnectivity to a subsequent state of progressively increasing specialization and localization of functional brain networks. With such early interconnectivity in mind, developmental neuroscientists must explore the possibility that a small perturbation in low-level processes in one part of the brain very early in development can result in serious deficits in higher-level processes in another part of the brain later in development. Therefore, in profiling developmental disorders of language such as in WS, it is vital to start in early infancy, from which to trace the full trajectory of the interactions of language and other cognitive processes across infancy, toddlerhood, and childhood, through to adolescence and adulthood.