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Is the power of language the hallmark of human intelligence? The case of Williams syndrome


Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith


This talk will challenge the view that language is the greatest hallmark of human intelligence. The case will be made on the basis of a neuro-developmental disorder in which surprisingly proficient language and face-processing skills co-exist with serious deficits in number, planning and problem-solving -- and even the inability to tie shoelaces or do simple spatial tasks.

Annette Karmiloff-Smith started professional life as a simultaneous interpreter with various United Nations organisations. In 1967 she changed careers and studied psychology at Geneva University, where she obtained her licence in 1970 and her doctorate in 1977, with two years in between working in the Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut. After collaborating with Piaget at the Centre Internationale d'Epistémologie Génétique in Geneva, she returned to the UK in 1982 and now heads the Neurocognitive Development Unit at the Institute of Child Health in London. She is a Member of the Academia Europeae, a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Author of 7 books and of over 100 articles in academic journals, she has won numerous awards for her scientific work, amongst which the British Psychological Society's 1995 Book Award for her Beyond Modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science. Her recent co-authored book, Rethinking Inertness: A connectionist perspective on development, was nominated for the 1997 American Psychological Association Eleanor Maccoby Prize. Two books written for the general public, Baby, It's You: A unique insight into the first three years of the developing baby and, with her daughter, Kyra Karmiloff, Everything Your Baby Would Ask if only He or She Could Talk, have also won international acclaim. She has just completed, again with her daughter, Language Acquisition from Foetus to Adolescent, which will appear with Harvard University Press in 2000.