Fact six: A disability or different abilities?

Luis Emilio

According to the WHO a disability includes having activity limitations. "An activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action". ¹ We all have a hard time with certain activities. I definitely encounter difficulties playing sports, singing, ...well the list could get very long.  So are we all disabled or do we have different abilities?

Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) have a special talent and interest for jigsaw puzzles. Elisabeth M. Dykens compared the ability to solve jigsaw puzzles in individuals with PWS with age matched typically developing individuals. She found that individuals with PWS on average placed 28.10 pieces correctly, while typically developing individuals placed 10.71. As expected the participants with PWS had a significantly lower IQ. On average their IQ was 63.48 (SD: 14.75) compared to 103.53 (SD10.3) ² in the typically developing individuals. Yet they placed more than twice as many pieces correctly!

Because this is after all an epidemiology blog, we should talk about the limitations of the study. Anecdotally children with PWS like to play with jigsaw puzzles more then most children. The study didn’t control for exposure or practice with jigsaw puzzles. It could be that children with PWS have more practice. Practice makes perfect right? But like the author of the article mentions; this still leaves the question of why children with Prader-Willi syndrome are attracted to jigsaw puzzles to begin with? Don’t we all enjoy doing things we are good at? 

Fact six: Individuals with PWS, like all of us, have different abilities. Many of them are really good at solving jigsaw puzzles!

Luis Emilio

Bibliography:

1. World Health Organization. (2011). Disabilities. Retrieved 04 2, 2011, from WHO: http://www.who.int/topics/disabilities/en/

2. Dykens, E. M. (2002), Are jigsaw puzzle skills `spared' in persons with Prader-Willi syndrome?. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43: 343–352. doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00025