The narrative profile in Williams syndrome: There is more to storytelling than just telling a story

Abstract

Williams Syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by a distinctive neurocognitive and behavioural phenotype, where relative cognitive strengths (e.g., language, narrative production, and face processing) coexist with severe deficits in other cognitive domains (e.g., visual-spatial processing). By using a new scoring system, this study aimed to explore structural (coherence), process (complexity) and content (multiplicity) aspects of fictional narrative production in WS, taking typical development as reference. In this way, it aimed at providing more evidence on the narrative profile of WS, complementing previous studies. Results showed that narratives in individuals with WS are significantly less coherent, diverse and complex relative to controls. Contrasting with typically developing controls' reliance on structural coherence, individuals with WS tend to rely more on the diversity of narrative content as a major narrative device. Additionally, these participants seem to compensate their deficiencies in narrative ability by relying on some social markers of the narrative, such as the emotional commitment with the story telling (i.e., evaluative commitment). Together, these findings bring additional support for the dissociation between expressive/social and cognitive/metacognitive aspects of narrative production in WS.