Repetitive Behaviour in Williams Syndrome Repetitive behaviours are fairly common in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders and often relate to movements, postures and vocalisations. In Williams syndrome, simple movements such as body rocking (considered a stereotyped behaviour) are often reported.
One of the characteristics of Williams syndrome is an inappropriate increase in social behavior. People with the syndrome may be overly friendly, even to strangers. We performed a novel study in our lab that demonstrated that the lack of a gene called Gtf2i may play a role in Williams syndrome.
Repetitive behaviour may include arm or hand-flapping, finger-flicking, rocking, jumping, spinning or twirling, head-banging and complex body movements.
Individuals with WS are overly friendly, gregarious, empathetic, and loquacious, but have difficulty interpreting social cues and in making and keeping friends.
Behavioural difficulties include: lack of social inhibition/discrimination, attention deficits, fears phobias, generalized anxiety (often related to health and illness), preoccupations obsessions (e.g. certain types of machinery e.g. lawn mowers, washing machines) and perseverative behaviour (doing or saying the same ...
Unique personality includes overfriendliness, empathy, generalized anxiety, specific phobias, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Cardiovascular disease (elastin arteriopathy). Supravalvar aortic stenosis is the most common. Peripheral pulmonic stenosis is common in infancy.
Often, children with Williams syndrome have strong verbal and communication skills, which could mask delays to their cognitive abilities, which are common in Williams syndrome-like learning numbers and letters, differentiating between real and abstract and their ability to understand the space between objects.
Williams syndrome is a spectrum disorder. There is a great deal of variability in individuals throughout the spectrum. Medical concerns and learning challenges, emotional issues, and anxiety are common and can be all-consuming at times. The severity of the challenges varies and can ebb and flow over the years.
Social skills: Although children with Williams syndrome are known to be quite social, they may learn to play and interact with other children more slowly than other children. They are often more interested in adults, and may struggle with attention to social cues with peers.
Williams syndrome may be undiagnosed, which means that many people with the disorder fail to get the support and treatment they need until later in life.
RRBs include a very broad category of behaviors such as preoccupation with restricted patterns of interest (e.g. having very specific knowledge about vacuum cleaners), adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines (e.g. insisting on taking a certain route to school), repetitive motor manners (e.g., hand flapping), and ...
What are repetitive behaviors? Scientists categorize repetitive behaviors into two groups. So-called 'lower-order' repetitive behaviors are movements such as hand-flapping, fidgeting with objects or body rocking, and vocalizations such as grunting or repeating certain phrases.
Williams syndrome IQ ranges from 48 to 85. True, people with Williams syndrome are often very loquacious and usually have better language than spatial skills, but the profile of the syndrome is unscientifically exaggerated by secondary sources.
Our own research has shown that children with WS generally have a very limited vocabulary up until the mental age1 of 18 months and many children may not say their first word until they are older than two years. There are a number of reasons why language abilities may be delayed in WS.
In general, students with Williams syndrome learn best with consistency, structured instructional routines, clear and realistic expectations, social stories, scripts and visual schedules, and technology. In particular, students with WS are often very effective users of computers and iPads/tablets.
Williams syndrome is a progressive disorder with multisystem involvement.
Although low mood in Williams syndrome is less well researched, there are indications that clinical depression diagnoses may be present in approximately 10% of individuals.
Most patients with Williams syndrome are diagnosed as a newborn or in early childhood. The average age of diagnosis is around three and a half years.
Autism and Williams syndrome are genetically based neurodevelopmental disorders that present strikingly different social phenotypes. Autism involves fundamental impairments in social reciprocity and communication, whereas people with Williams syndrome are highly sociable and engaging.
Anxiety is a prevalent mental health issue for individuals with Williams syndrome (WS). Relatively little is known about the developmental course of anxiety, or how it links with core features of WS, namely social and executive functioning (EF).
Williams syndrome, also known as Williams-Beuren syndrome, is a genetic condition that is characterized by several unique physical and cognitive characteristics. Williams syndrome is called the happy syndrome because people with this condition often have outgoing, friendly personalities and tend to be very social.
And they found that people with Williams syndrome have a lot more oxytocin than everybody else, and that it fluctuates wildly in the brain. As a result, they feel this biological impulse to love all the time.
Despite the possibility of medical problems, most children and adults with Williams syndrome are healthy and lead active, full lives.
Individuals with WS typically demonstrate an overly friendly, affectionate, engaging, and socially disinhibited personality [6, 12].