Generally, after children reach 4 to 5 years of age, they display positive attitude towards people of their own race. However children suffering from Williams Syndrome show no racial bias what so ever, according to a latest research. While conducting the research, two pictures were shown to the sample comprising of normal childern as well as those who had Williams Syndrome. One picture was of a white man and the other showed an African American. When asked which one is the bad guy, kids with Williams Syndrome seemed to be indifferent. However when the same question was asked to normal children, they pointed to the picture that showed a person having different ethnicity then their own.
What Causes Williams Syndrome?
Williams Syndrome is caused by the deletion of roughly 25 genes on chromosome 7. The deletion can occur randomly during the production of a sperm or egg cell. Though there are 20,000 to 25,000 genes in the human genome, even the loss of just 25 genes can have profound effects on a person's physical, behavioral and cognitive make-up.
Why the deletion of genes causes such friendliness and social disinhibition is not well understood. The development of our personalities is a complex relationship between our social environment and our genes -- both present and not.
If you think most children -- with or without Williams -- are warm and open, you'd be wrong. Tager-Flusberg's research team has recorded hours of video comparing children with Williams to typically-developing children.
In one experiment to test empathy, the adult experimenter bangs her knee on a table and expresses a great deal of pain. In many runs the lab recorded, the typically-developing child just watched and expressed no empathy or concern. But children with Williams often went right over to the experimenter to rub her knee and ask, "What's wrong?"
With such empathy comes a lack of fear. Watching a recording of a typically-developing child reacting to a hairy, moving, toy spider, Tager-Flusberg noted, not surprisingly, "She doesn't want to approach it...and doesn't have any inclination to go near to it and touch."
What do most children with Williams Syndrome do when presented with the creepy spider? They pet it.
But this lack of fear has a scary side, too. In another experiment, Tager-Flusberg has a stranger enter a room. And not just any stranger, but one wearing a baseball cap and dark sunglasses. As you would guess, children without Williams avoid the stranger like the plague. Children with Williams, however, often engage the stranger in conversation, and in one case we saw a child even offered a toy for the stranger to play with.
Such social disinhibition and innocence can have real-life consequences, and that extends to adults with Williams Syndrome.
Kelley Martin, 34, of Westwood, N.J., has Williams Syndrome; she was bullied by a so-called friend into paying for that friend's expenses. Kelley's mother, Anne, realized what was happening $1,500 later.
"It's very scary," Anne Martin told 20/20. "Because I know what can happen to her if there's nobody watching for her."
