The Interplay Between Anxiety and Social Functioning in Williams Syndrome

Riby, Deborah M.; Hanley, Mary; Kirk, Hannah; Clark, Fiona; Little, Katie; Fleck, Ruth; Janes, Emily; Kelso, Linzi; O'Kane, Fionnuala; Cole-Fletcher, Rachel; Allday, Marianne Hvistendahl; Hocking, Darren R.; Cornish, Kim; Rodgers, Jacqui

doi:10.1007/s10803-013-1984-7

Cited by 55 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Perhaps paradoxically, despite hypersociability, profound impairments in reciprocal social communicative and interactive behavior are evident in individuals with WS (Klein-Tasman, Li-Barber, & Magargee, 2011; van der Fluit, Gaffrey, & Klein-Tasman, 2012; Riby et al, 2014), including a lack of interpersonal relationships and subsequent social isolation (Davies, Udwin, & Howlin, 1998; Jawaid, Riby, Owens, White, Tarar, & Schultz, 2011), impacting such individuals’ wellbeing. A growing body of literature has focused on characterizing the nature and extent of social dysfunction evident in WS by utilizing diagnostic instruments commonly employed to screen for ASD.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relations between social-perceptual ability in multi- and unisensory contexts, autonomic reactivity, and social functioning in individuals with Williams syndrome

Järvinen

Crivelli

et al. 2015

Neuropsychologia

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Compromised social-perceptual ability has been proposed to contribute to social dysfunction in neurodevelopmental disorders. While such impairments have been identified in Williams syndrome (WS), little is known about emotion processing in auditory and multisensory contexts. Employing a multidimensional approach, individuals with WS and typical development (TD) were tested for emotion identification across fearful, happy, and angry multisensory and unisensory face and voice stimuli. Autonomic responses were monitored in response to unimodal emotion. The WS group was administered an inventory of social functioning. Behaviorally, individuals with WS relative to TD demonstrated impaired processing of unimodal vocalizations and emotionally incongruent audiovisual compounds, reflecting a generalized deficit in social-auditory processing in WS. The TD group outperformed their counterparts with WS in identifying negative (fearful and angry) emotion, with similar between-group performance with happy stimuli. Mirroring this pattern, electrodermal activity (EDA) responses to the emotional content of the stimuli indicated that whereas those with WS showed the highest arousal to happy, and lowest arousal to fearful stimuli, the TD participants demonstrated the contrasting pattern. In WS, more normal social functioning was related to higher autonomic arousal to facial expressions. Implications for underlying neural architecture and emotional functions are discussed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relations between social-perceptual ability in multi- and unisensory contexts, autonomic reactivity, and social functioning in individuals with Williams syndrome

Järvinen

Crivelli

et al. 2015

Neuropsychologia

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“…In all cases the WS group showed more atypical social behaviour. 92% of TD young people displayed overall social behaviour that was deemed to be in the normal range of functioning, whereas only 18% of young people with WS scored within the normal range (this maps directly onto levels reported in van der Fluit et al, 2012 andRiby et al, 2014). Importantly, the results also revealed statistically significant differences between the two groups on the four items in the SRS that relate to personal space, with parents of individuals with WS reporting greater atypicalities in their son/daughter on these items (all p<0.01; Mann-Whitney U tests; see Figure 2).…”

Section: Social Responsiveness Scalementioning

confidence: 65%

“…These findings are of particular concern given what is known about the indiscriminate approach behaviour using face-rating tasks with WS adults (Jones et al, 2000) and the lack of stranger danger awareness in WS (Riby et al, 2014). Invading the personal space of others, particularly strangers, can also transfer fallacious social intentions (Kaitz et al, 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…It has frequently been used in the typicallydeveloping population, but also with young people with WS (e.g. Klein-Tasman et al, 2011;Riby et al, 2014;Lough et al, 2015a). From the responses, five sub-scale scores can be generated in the areas of: social awareness, social cognition, social communication, social motivation and autistic mannerisms (see Table 1).…”

Section: Methods Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Spence, 1998) The Spence Children's Anxiety Scale-Parent Version (SCAS-P; Spence, 1998) was used to assess symptoms of anxiety. This issue is particularly relevant due to increased anxiety in WS and reports of an association between increased anxiety and atypical social behaviours (Riby et al, 2014). The SCAS-P has been reported to have good psychometric qualities including a high internal consistency of .92 (Spence, Barrett, & Turner, 2003), and has been used in both TD and clinically anxious populations (Nauta et al, 2004;Spence, 1998).…”

Section: Social Responsiveness Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

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Personal Space Regulation in Williams Syndrome: The Effect of Familiarity

Lough

Flynn

Riby

2016

J Autism Dev Disord

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. (2016) 'Personal space regulation in Williams syndrome : the e ect of familiarity.', Journal of autism and developmental disorders., 46 (10). 3207-3215. Further information on publisher's website:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2864-8Publisher's copyright statement:The nal publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2864-8Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractPersonal space refers to a protective barrier that we strive to maintain around our body. We examined personal space regulation in young people with Williams syndrome (WS) and their typically developing, chronological age-matched peers using a parent report questionnaire and a stop-distance paradigm. Individuals with WS were reported by their parents to be more likely to violate the personal space of others, and indeed they maintained a shorter interpersonal distance in the stop-distance paradigm. Interestingly, WS individuals failed to regulate their personal space based on the familiarity of the person they were interacting with.Findings are discussed in relation to the wider social profile associated with WS, and the possible impact of atypical personal space regulation on social vulnerability. 2Personal space regulation in Williams syndrome: The effect of familiarity When engaging in social interactions, individuals must regulate the distance that they maintain between themselves and other people (Hall, 1996). Personal space is defined as the area around a person's body, which if invaded, can cause feelings of discomfort and anxiety (Perry et al., 2013). Vignemont and Iannetti (2015) outline different types of personal space.Peripersonal space refers to the space around one's body where an object can be grasped, whereas extrapersonal space is the area around the body that is just beyond reach. Indeed, , 1997). The current study is concerned with the protective peripersonal space (herein referred to as simply 'personal space'), and its implications for social vulnerability levels in Williams syndrome.For typically developing individuals, regulating this personal space is a largely automatic process, guided by situational cues, social cues and cultural norms (Beaulieu, 2004). The ability to successfully collate these cues and maintain an appropriate interpersonal distance contributes to successful and positive social interactions (Gessaroli et al., 2013).However, it is known that some individuals with developmental disorders find social interactions challenging, and they may also...

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“Intolerance of uncertainty” mediates the relationship between social profile and anxiety in both Williams syndrome and autism

et al. 2021

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Anxiety is the most significant mental health concern for both Williams syndrome (WS) and autism. Whilst WS and autism are characterized by some syndrome‐specific social differences, less is known about cross‐syndrome profiles of anxiety symptoms. Previous research has shown that Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) is a core mechanism of anxiety maintenance for clinically anxious populations and for autistic children, adolescents, and adults. The only published study in this area for WS has shown some similar patterns—with an added emphasis on the role of sensory sensitivities—in a sample of older teens and adults (mean age = 24), with the authors highlighting the need for younger samples to consider developmental influences. Here we report a cross‐syndrome, cross‐sectional mediation analyses of children diagnosed with WS or autism, including data from parent surveys of 90 children with WS (n = 48) or autism (n = 42). Group differences showed higher trait levels on all measures for the autism group. Importantly, the relationship between social profile and anxiety was fully mediated by IU level for both groups. This suggests possible similar core mechanisms underlying anxiety in these conditions, and the possibility of generalized intervention approaches especially related to managing distress related to uncertainty in multiple contexts. Lay Summary Autism and Williams Syndrome share some similarities in social profile and also in anxiety traits, but there are also some key differences as well. Comparing them side‐by‐side at the same time improved identification of ways to reduce feelings of anxiety. We found that the intolerance of uncertainty affected the relationship between social profile and anxiety in the same way for young children diagnosed with autism or Williams syndrome, meaning that intervention approaches could be similar for both.

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The Interplay Between Anxiety and Social Functioning in Williams Syndrome

Cited by 55 publications

References 44 publications

Relations between social-perceptual ability in multi- and unisensory contexts, autonomic reactivity, and social functioning in individuals with Williams syndrome

Relations between social-perceptual ability in multi- and unisensory contexts, autonomic reactivity, and social functioning in individuals with Williams syndrome

Personal Space Regulation in Williams Syndrome: The Effect of Familiarity

“Intolerance of uncertainty” mediates the relationship between social profile and anxiety in both Williams syndrome and autism

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