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Introduction: Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) often exhibit a severe speech impairment, with important consequences on language intelligibility. For these cases, the use of Augmentative Alternative Communication instruments, that increase an individual's communication abilities, becomes crucial. Talkitt is a mobile application created by Voiceitt Company, exploiting speech recognition technology and artificial intelligence models to translate in real-time unintelligible sounds into clear words, allowing individuals with language production impairment to verbally communicate in real-time., Methods: The study evaluated the usability and satisfaction related to the Talkitt application use, as well as effects on adapted behavior and communication, of participants with DS. A final number of 23 individuals with DS, aged 5.54 to 28.9 years, participated in this study and completed 6 months of training. The application was trained to consistently recognize at least 20 different unintelligible words (e.g., nouns and/or short phrases)/person., Results: Results revealed good usability and high levels of satisfaction related to the application use. Moreover, we registered improvement in linguistic abilities, particularly naming., Discussion: These results paves the road for a potential role of Talkitt application as a supportive and rehabilitative tool for DS., Competing Interests: DW and SS have a commercial and financial interest in the Talkitt application, since they are, respectively, CoFounder and CEO and Director of Business Development of Voiceitt. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Costanzo, Fucà, Caciolo, Ruà, Smolley, Weissberg and Vicari.)

Interstitial deletions of 7q11.23 cause the well-known Williams-Beuren Syndrome (WBS), while duplication of the same region leads to duplication 7 syndrome (Dup7). Children with WBS share a distinct neurobehavioral phenotype including mild to severe intellectual disability, severely impaired visual spatial abilities, relatively preserved verbal expressive skills, anxiety problems, enhanced social motivation (i.e., hypersociable behaviors) and socio-communicative problems. Children with Dup7 syndrome exhibit some "inverted" features when compared to those of individuals with WBS, such as reduced social motivation and impairment of expressive language. Direct comparison of WBS and Dup7 represents a unique opportunity for the neurobehavioral characterization of the 7q11.23 section. However, most of the available data come from qualitative analysis between different studies. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies directly comparing features of two matched samples of individuals with WBS and Dup7 syndromes. In this pilot study, we compare the adaptive functioning - measured with the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Second Edition - of two relatively small samples of children with molecularly confirmed diagnosis of WBS and Dup7 matched for IQ and chronological age, with a particular attention to socialization domain and expressive subdomain. Contrary to our assumption, we have not found any significant difference on socialization domain and expressive subdomains. This pilot investigation suggests that, when matched for chronological age and cognitive level, children with WBS and Dup7 share more similarities than expected. The inverted features that emerge in clinical settings on expressive language and social motivation seem not to differently interfere with the daily abilities to communicate and socialize with meaningful others during daily lives. Differences highlighted by previous undirected comparisons could be due to general and non-specific factors such as cognitive level, which is more severely impaired in individuals with WBS than Dup7. Implications for assessment and treatment are discussed., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Alfieri, Scibelli, Montanaro, Caciolo, Bergonzini, Dentici and Vicari.)