Purser, H.R.M., Farran, E.K., Courbois, Y. et al. (4 more authors) (2015) The development of route learning in Down syndrome, Williams syndrome and typical development: investigations with virtual environments. Developmental Science, 18 (4). pp. 599-613. ISSN 1363-755X
Abstract
The ability to navigate new environments has a significant impact on the daily life and independence of people with learning difficulties. The aims of this study were to investigate the development of route learning in Down syndrome (N = 50), Williams syndrome (N = 19), and typically developing children between 5 and 11 years old (N = 108); to investigate use of landmarks; and to relate cognitive functions to route-learning ability in these groups. Overall, measures of attention and long-term memory were strongly associated with route learning, even once non-verbal ability was controlled for. All of the groups, including 5- to 6-year-old TD children, demonstrated the ability to make use of all landmark types to aid route learning; those near junctions, those further from junctions, and also distant landmarks (e.g. church spire, radio mast). Individuals with WS performed better than a matched subset of TD children on more difficult routes; we suggest that this is supported by relatively strong visual feature recognition in the disorder. Participants with DS who had relatively high levels of non-verbal ability performed at a similar level to TD participants.
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 The Authors. Developmental Science Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. | ||||
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield | ||||
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) | ||||
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Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield | ||||
Date Deposited: | 02 Mar 2016 10:58 | ||||
Last Modified: | 02 Mar 2016 10:58 | ||||
Published Version: | https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12236 | ||||
Status: | Published | ||||
Publisher: | Wiley | ||||
Refereed: | Yes | ||||
Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12236 | ||||
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