Children's strategies for maintaining cohesion in their written and oral stories

This study investigated the use of cohesive referential ties (personals, demonstratives, and comparatives) to maintain textual coherence in the oral and written stories of young children. Overall, a general pattern of usage of cohesive referential ties was maintained regardless of story condition. Oral stories demonstrated more varied cohesive referential ties than did written stories. With increasing age, subjects used significantly more personals and significantly fewer demonstratives (primarily the). Females demonstrated more advanced use of cohesive referential ties than did males. The implications of these findings for facilitating the development of communicative competence among children are discussed.