Another neuroatypicality that I find interesting to compare with autism is Williams syndrome. The behavioural symptoms (unlike autism, there are also a lot of physical ones) are a sort of opposite of autism/Asperger’s. People with Williams syndrome talk readily—too readily, in children—to strangers, and appear usually adept at social conversation. On first meeting unawares someone with the syndrome, one may see nothing amiss. If it is a child, one may be impressed by their apparently mature behaviour beyond their years, but eventually, one realises that there’s nothing behind it. They have a facility with the forms but not the function, a “party” personality that can do nothing else.
Williams syndrome isn’t an all or nothing condition, there are degrees. A colleague of mine told me of meeting the headmaster of his daughter’s school, and when he met the headmaster’s wife, he immediately recognised the characteristic physiognomy of Williams syndrome. Sure enough, when he spoke with her, she was unusually affable and charming, but he could see that there was actually a real person there, a competent, intelligent woman.
Since discovering Williams syndrome, whenever I meet someone with a “party personality” my immediate thought is, “can they do anything else”?
Another neuroatypicality that I find interesting to compare with autism is Williams syndrome. The behavioural symptoms (unlike autism, there are also a lot of physical ones) are a sort of opposite of autism/Asperger’s. People with Williams syndrome talk readily—too readily, in children—to strangers, and appear usually adept at social conversation. On first meeting unawares someone with the syndrome, one may see nothing amiss. If it is a child, one may be impressed by their apparently mature behaviour beyond their years, but eventually, one realises that there’s nothing behind it. They have a facility with the forms but not the function, a “party” personality that can do nothing else.
Williams syndrome isn’t an all or nothing condition, there are degrees. A colleague of mine told me of meeting the headmaster of his daughter’s school, and when he met the headmaster’s wife, he immediately recognised the characteristic physiognomy of Williams syndrome. Sure enough, when he spoke with her, she was unusually affable and charming, but he could see that there was actually a real person there, a competent, intelligent woman.
Since discovering Williams syndrome, whenever I meet someone with a “party personality” my immediate thought is, “can they do anything else”?