This study investigates lexical organization and lexical retrieval in children with Williams syndrome (WS), by examining both naming accuracy and accompanying use of gestures in a picture-naming task. Ten children with the genetic disorder of Williams syndrome (age range: 9.5-12.9) were compared with twenty typically developing children, ten matched for chronological age and ten for mental age. Lexical production was measured by administering the Boston Naming test (BNT). Older typically developing children performed significantly better than the other two groups. No differences in accuracy were found between the children with WS and the typically developing children matched for mental age. The overall distribution of error types displayed by children with WS indicate that the lexical-semantic organization is similar to that of typically developing children. However, compared to controls, the WS group produced more iconic gestures during the task, in patterns that suggests the existence of specific word-finding difficulties in these children. Results are discussed within the framework of recent theories on the role of gesture in speech production.
