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Psicothema was founded in Asturias (northern Spain) in 1989, and is published jointly by the Psychology Faculty of the University of Oviedo and the Psychological Association of the Principality of Asturias (Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos del Principado de Asturias).
We currently publish four issues per year, which accounts for some 100 articles annually. We admit work from both the basic and applied research fields, and from all areas of Psychology, all manuscripts being anonymously reviewed prior to publication.

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  • Director: Laura E. Gómez Sánchez
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Narrative competence in Spanish-speaking adults with Williams syndrome

Eliseo Diez-Itza, Verónica Martínez and Aránzazu Antón

Universidad de Oviedo

Background: Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder associated with intellectual disability and characterised by displaying an atypical neuropsychological profile, with peaks and valleys, where language skills seem better preserved than non-verbal intelligence. Method: This study researches the narrative competence of nine Spanish-speaking adults with WS. Oral narratives were elicited from a silent film, and narrative coherence was analysed as a function of sequential order of the events narrated at three structure levels, while narrative cohesion was assessed through the frequency of use and type of discourse markers. Results: WS subjects were able to remember a significant proportion of the events from the film, but coherence of narratives, i.e., sequential order of events, was more impaired. Consistently with their linguistic abilities, cohesion of narratives was better preserved, as they used discourse markers to introduce a high proportion of events. Conclusions: Construction of mental models of the narratives may be constrained in WS by non-verbal cognitive abilities, but narrative competence is also determined by textual pragmatic abilities to organize discourse, which should be addressed by specific intervention in narrative competence.

Competencia narrativa en adultos hablantes de español con síndrome de Williams. Antecedentes: el síndrome de Williams (SW) es un trastorno genético asociado con discapacidad intelectual, que presenta un perfil neuropsicológico atípico, con picos y valles, donde las habilidades lingüísticas parecen mejor preservadas que la inteligencia no-verbal. Método: se investiga la competencia narrativa de un grupo de nueve adultos castellanohablantes con SW. Se elicitaron narraciones orales a partir de una película muda y se evaluó su coherencia narrativa en función del orden secuencial de los eventos narrados en tres niveles estructurales, así como la cohesión narrativa en función de la frecuencia y tipo de marcadores discursivos. Resultados: los sujetos con SW recordaban una alta proporción de los eventos de la película, pero la coherencia de las narraciones, i.e. el orden secuencial de los eventos, aparecía más alterada. En consonancia con sus habilidades lingüísticas, la cohesión de las narraciones aparecía mejor preservada ya que usaban marcadores discursivos para introducir muchos de los eventos. Conclusiones: la construcción de modelos mentales de las narraciones puede verse limitada en el SW por las habilidades cognitivas no-verbales, pero la competencia narrativa también está determinada por las habilidades pragmáticas textuales para organizar el discurso, que podrían abordarse mediante la intervención específica en la competencia narrativa.

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Impact factor 2022:  JCR WOS 2022:  FI = 3.6 (Q2);  JCI = 1.21 (Q1) / SCOPUS 2022:  SJR = 1.097;  CiteScore = 6.4 (Q1)