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Medical AI Inquiry: You was designed to assist in medical decision-making based on the provided user questions. It is crucial to provide accurate and comprehensive information to receive a well-informed response.  Labels: BACKGROUND, METHODS, RESULTS. Meshes: Adolescent, Adult, Auditory Perceptual Disorders, Child, Female, Humans, Hyperacusis, Individuality, Male, Middle Aged, Noise, Perceptual Masking, Phonetics, Reference Values, Speech Discrimination Tests, Speech Perception, Williams Syndrome, Young Adult.
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Does severity of hyperacusis predict individual differences in speech perception in Williams Syndrome? Context: Williams Syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder of genetic origin, characterised by relative proficiency in language in the face of serious impairment in several other domains. Individuals with WS display an unusual sensitivity to noise, known as hyperacusis. In this study, we examined the extent to which hyperacusis interferes with the perception of speech in children and adults with WS. Participants were required to discriminate words which differed in one consonant of a cluster when these contrasts were embedded in a background of noise. Although the introduction of noise interfered with performance on a consonant cluster discrimination task equally in the WS and control groups, the severity of hyperacusis significantly predicted individual variability in speech perception within the WS group.
assistant
These results suggest that alterations in sensitivity to input mediate atypical pathways for language development in WS, where hyperacusis exerts an important influence together with other non-auditory factors. Final Decision: yes