Behavioral Profiles of Children With Williams Syndrome From Spain and the United States: Cross-Cultural Similarities and Differences.
Débora Pérez-García, Carme Brun-Gasca, Luis A Pérez-Jurado and 1 others
PMID 28257245WHAT IT FOUND
When compared with children in their own country, Spanish and US children with Williams syndrome showed similar behavioral problem patterns.
Spanish parents reported higher raw problem scores, and social problems remained the main elevated difference after country norms.
Key findings
01Parents of Spanish children with Williams syndrome reported higher raw problem scores than parents of American children, but country-specific T-score comparisons showed very few differences.
02Attention problems were the most common elevated area in both countries.
03Social problems were the main remaining country difference after country-specific norms, with more Spanish parents endorsing teasing, dependence, and clumsiness, and more US parents endorsing speech problems.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study relied only on parent reports, not teacher reports or direct observation. Parents in different countries may interpret the same behavior differently, so raw score differences may reflect reporting style rather than actual behavior. The study used a single questionnaire and compared Spain and the United States. The design was cross-sectional and did not test whether any intervention changes these behaviors. Spanish norms were provisional, and intellectual abilities were measured with different tests in each country.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not state author conflicts. The publication types list NIH extramural and non-U.S. government research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that Spanish children with Williams syndrome have more behavioral problems than US children. That difference appeared in raw scores, but when each child was compared with same-country norms, almost all differences disappeared, leaving social problems as the main remaining difference.