Many individuals with autism experience challenges using language in social contexts (i.e., pragmatic language). Characterizing and understanding pragmatic variability is important to inform intervention strategies and the etiology of communication challenges in autism; however, current manual coding-based methods are often time and labor…

Introduction: The aim of the present study was to determine whether individuals with Prader--Willi syndrome (PWS) have impaired global executive functioning and whether this deficit is linked with intellectual disability. Another objective focussed on the variability in performance of intellectual quotient (IQ) and executive functions (EF)…

Understanding the role of negative emotionality in the development of executive functioning (EF) and language skills can help identify developmental windows that may provide promising opportunities for intervention. In addition, because EF and language skills are, in part, genetically influenced, intergenerational transmission patterns are…

The home literacy environment is a well-established predictor of children's language and literacy development. We investigated whether formal, informal, and indirect measures of the home literacy environment predict children's reading and language skills once maternal language abilities are taken into account. Data come from a longitudinal study…

The ranking of Wechsler subtests in terms of their "g" loadings is equivalent to ranking them in terms of the cognitive complexity of the tasks measured. Lower performing groups do not always fall behind higher performing groups the more complex the task. But that is the general rule, no matter whether the cause of the lower performance…

Background: Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a rare genetic disorder characterised by developmental abnormalities leading to somatic and psychological symptoms. These include dysmorphic features, impaired growth and sexual maturation, hyperphagia, intellectual delay, learning disabilities and maladaptive behaviours. PWS is caused by a lack of…

Correlations on subscales of Wechsler intelligence quotient tests and the Revised Beta Examination were obtained for biologically related and unrelated individuals in 181 adoptive families in the Texas Adoption Project. Generally higher correlations for biologically related individuals support the importance of genetic influence in intellectual…

Background: Childhood onset schizophrenia (COS) is a rare disorder. Comparative data on the effect of differential age of onset on clinical profile in schizophrenia are very few. Method: Subjects with COS (n = 15), adolescence onset schizophrenia (AdOS, n = 20) and adulthood onset schizophrenia (AOS, n = 20) were compared on socio-demographic,…