Do children with Williams syndrome fail to process visual configural information?

Configural visual abilities in thirteen children with Williams syndrome (WS) compared to 13 children matched on mental age and 13 children matched on chronological age. Configural abilities were tested through four tasks (1) Silhouette (2) Fragmented (3) Mooney and (4) overlapping figures. In the first three tasks, it was necessary to take into account the global information, as the identification of the figures could not be established through a local analysis. In the fourth task, the global configuration of the display had to be ignored. Configural skills seem appropriate in the WS population. A possible dissociation between perceptual and visuo-constructive configural competences is discussed.