Cognitive Therapy Protocol of Understanding Embodiment Metaphorical Expressions in Children with William’s Syndrome

Background: Normal children understand and use embodiment metaphoricalexpressions since they start learning a language, but children suffering fromWilliam’s syndrome even in adulthood have little understanding of such expressionsand they can hardly use them.Objectives: This study is an attempt to teach embodiment metaphorical expressionsof 4.5-5 year old Persian children suffering from William’s syndrome.Materials and Methods: Ten 4.5-5 year old Persian children with William’ssyndrome were studied using dual cards by Bialeka-Pikul in five sessions withrequired intervals and measuring their amount of their learning through a test ofunderstanding of the Persian language and using such expressions. This method ofinvestigation can be used as a therapeutic protocol in this area. The method used inthis study was descriptive-experimental and carried out without making any changesin the variables.Results: Results of this study showed that after five sessions with this therapeuticmethod, each of the 10 children with William’s syndrome moved from level one ofrelative understanding, which means formation of metaphorical structure, to leveltwo of metaphorical understanding of embodiment expressions. In this group, themetaphor of taste with 2.50 points was the highest and the metaphor of shape in theexpression with 0.8 point was the lowest.Conclusion: Control groups in filling the blanks had the highest number of correctanswers in the characteristic taste followed by the characteristics smell, speed, andcolor, and had the least points with metaphorical phrases that reflect the use ofminimum idiomatic metaphors.

Keywords:

Cognitive Therapy , Metaphor , Linguistics