Williams Syndrome is an extraordinary genetic situation -- so uncommon, in reality, that few other folks have ever heard of it. Of about 7,500 newborns, just one can have it. But that one, should you ever meet her or him, will most probably have a personality of unforgettable ebullience and warmth. It's the type of character noticed handiest infrequently past the world of Williams Syndrome.
While 20/20's Chris Cuomo attended a camp for children with Williams he was besieged through hugs and slaps at the back. Then got here the barrage of questions. "What is your favourite color?" "The place do you reside?" "Have you met Barney the Dinosaur?"
Children with Williams are also often identifiable via a variety of facial characteristics, from small, pointed enamel, to upturned noses, to a telltale puffiness underneath their eyes. However the camp is a spot the place everyone wants to be your loved one regardless of who you might be or what you look like.
"Little babies will come as much as you, they are going to stare into your face, and it'll be laborious to in truth disengage from that stare," explained Helen Tager-Flusberg whose lab at Boston School research the social habits of youngsters with Williams. "While they're four or five...whether or not they recognise you or no longer, within about 5 mins you are their new perfect friend."
One interesting observe by means of researchers in Europe discovered that children with Williams show no racial bias whatsoever. While youngsters, even young children, prefer other folks of their own race, the neural pathway that imprints for race bias is someway missing in kids with Williams.
What Causes Williams Syndrome?
Williams Syndrome is resulting from the deletion of roughly 25 genes on chromosome 7. The deletion can happen randomly right through the manufacturing of a sperm or egg cell. Regardless that there are 20,000 to 25,000 genes in the human genome, even the lack of simply 25 genes could have profound effects on a person's bodily, behavioral and cognitive make-up.
Why the deletion of genes reasons such friendliness and social disinhibition is not neatly understood. The advance of our personalities is a complex dating among our social environment and our genes -- both provide and not.
For those who suppose most youngsters -- without or with Williams -- are heat and open, you'd be wrong. Tager-Flusberg's analysis team has recorded hours of video comparing youngsters with Williams to most often-developing children.
In one test to test empathy, the adult experimenter bangs her knee on a desk and expresses an excessive amount of pain. In lots of runs the lab recorded, the typically-creating child just watched and expressed no empathy or concern. But kids with Williams frequently went proper over to the experimenter to rub her knee and ask, "What's fallacious?"
With such empathy comes a lack of fear. Gazing a recording of a normally-growing child reacting to a hairy, moving, toy spider, Tager-Flusberg noted, not strangely, "She doesn't need to method it...and does not have any inclination to move on the subject of it and touch."
What do such a lot kids with Williams Syndrome do when offered with the creepy spider? They pet it.
But this loss of fear has a horrifying aspect, too. In any other test, Tager-Flusberg has a stranger input a room. And now not simply any stranger, however one dressed in a baseball cap and darkish sunglasses. As you might guess, youngsters without Williams avoid the stranger just like the plague. Youngsters with Williams, then again, frequently interact the stranger in conversation, and in a single case we saw a kid even offered a toy for the stranger to play with.
Such social disinhibition and innocence can have actual-life consequences, and that extends to adults with Williams Syndrome.
Kelley Martin, 34, of Westwood, N.J., has Williams Syndrome; she used to be bullied by means of a so-referred to as family member into purchasing that family member's expenses. Kelley's mom, Anne, realized what was once taking place $1,500 later.
"It's very horrifying," Anne Martin informed 20/20. "As a result of I do know what can occur to her if there's no one observing for her."
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