Martínez Castilla, PastoraGarcía Nogales, Mª ÁngelesCampos, RuthRodríguez González, Manuel2025-10-272025-10-272014-01-16Martínez-Castilla, P., García-Nogales, M.A., Campos, R., y Rodríguez, M. (2015). Environmental sound recognition by timbre in children with Williams syndrome. Child Neuropsychology, 21 - 1, 90 – 105. https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2013.8764920929-7049 | eISSN 1744-4136https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2013.876492https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/30620This is the Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in "Child Neuropsychology, 21, 2015, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2013.876492Este es el manuscrito aceptado de un artículo publicado por Taylor & Francis en "Child Neuropsychology, 21 , 2015 disponible en línea: https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2013.876492Financiación: This research was partially funded by grant AP2003-5098 from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Spanish Government. The manuscript was proofread thanks to funds from the Department of Basic Psychology (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid).Anecdotal reports have described children with Williams syndrome (WS) as presenting outstanding skills for recognizing environmental sounds by their timbre. This has led to suggest that the skills for environmental sound recognition by timbre are highly developed in WS. Furthermore, the term hypertimbria has been proposed to refer to this feature. However, no academic research has assessed these skills in WS. This study therefore aimed to contrast the reports on the highly developed skills for environmental sound recognition by timbre in children with WS. An environmental sound recognition task was administered to children with WS, children with Down syndrome of the same chronological age and cognitive level, and chronological age-matched typically developing children. Participants with WS performed significantly lower than their typically developing peers and no significant differences were found between the WS and Down syndrome groups. Unlike previous reports, this study points out that in WS environmental sound recognition by timbre does not constitute a phenotypic strength either in absolute or relative terms. Results suggest that children with WS do not present hypertimbria or preserved skills for timbre recognition. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of cognitive modularity.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess61 PsicologíaartículoWilliams syndromeEnvironmental sound recognitionTimbrePhenotypic profileModularity