Abstract
BackgroundIndividuals with Down syndrome (DS) and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have poor navigation skills, which impact their potential to become independent. Two aspects of navigation were investigated in these groups, using virtual environments (VE): route knowledge (the ability to learn the way from A to B by following a fixed sequence of turns) and configural knowledge (knowledge of the spatial relationships between places within an environment).MethodsTypically developing (TD) children aged 5 to 11 years (N = 93), individuals with DS (N = 29) and individuals with WS (N = 20) were presented with a sparse and a rich VE grid maze. Within each maze, participants were asked to learn a route from A to B and a route from A to C before being asked to find a novel shortcut from B to C.ResultsPerformance was broadly similar across sparse and rich mazes. The majority of participants were able to learn novel routes, with poorest performance in the DS group, but the ability to find a shortcut, our measure of configural knowledge, was limited for all three groups. That is, 59 % TD participants successfully found a shortcut, compared to 10 % participants with DS and 35 % participants with WS. Differences in the underlying mechanisms associated with route knowledge and configural knowledge and in the developmental trajectories of performance across groups were observed. Only the TD participants walked a shorter distance in the last shortcut trial compared to the first, indicative of increased configural knowledge across trials. The DS group often used an alternative strategy to get from B to C, summing the two taught routes together.ConclusionsOur findings demonstrate impaired configural knowledge in DS and in WS, with the strongest deficit in DS. This suggests that these groups rely on a rigid route knowledge based method for navigating and as a result are likely to get lost easily. Route knowledge was also impaired in both DS and WS groups and was related to different underlying processes across all three groups. These are discussed with reference to limitations in attention and/or visuo-spatial processing in the atypical groups.
Highlights
Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have poor navigation skills, which impact their potential to become independent
The deficit was stronger in DS than in WS to the extent that the DS group often employed an alternative strategy of tagging one taught route onto another to reach a goal
This configural knowledge impairment has implications for independence for these groups, as route learning strategies that rely on route knowledge alone are inflexible to change, and it is difficult to get back on track when lost, without access to some configural understanding of the environment
Summary
Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have poor navigation skills, which impact their potential to become independent. We initially learn the way from A to B by following a fixed sequence of turns, using landmarks as reference points, a strategy referred to as the use of route knowledge [42] Whilst this strategy is effective, it has limitations because it is inflexible to deviations from the known route. Children become gradually more able to use the configuration of the environment as a strategy to successfully find their way around (i.e. they develop a cognitive map) between 5 and 10 years of age [6] This configural knowledge of the environment enables us to find shortcuts or alternative routes between two known places and to re-orient and find our way back if we get lost
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