Linguistic and pragmatic aspects of narration in Finnish typically developing children and children with specific language impairment

Abstract

This study investigates narratives of Finnish children with specific language impairment (SLI) from linguistic and pragmatic perspectives, in order to get a comprehensive overview of these children’s narrative abilities. Nineteen children with SLI (mean age 6;1 years) and 19 typically developing age-matched children participated in the study. Their picture-elicited narrations were analysed for linguistic productivity and complexity, grammatical and referential accuracy, event content, the use of mental state expressions and narrative comprehension. Children with SLI showed difficulties in every aspect of narration in comparison to their peers. Only one measure of productivity, the number of communication units, did not reach statistical significance. Not only was linguistic structure fragile but also pragmatic aspects of storytelling (referencing, event content, mental state expressions and inferencing) were demanding for children with SLI. Results suggest that pragmatic aspects of narration should be taken into account more often when assessing narrative abilities of children with SLI.

• Comprehension
• mental state terms
• narrative
• referencing
• specific language impairment

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank MA Anna-Kaisa Tolonen for her contribution in inter-rater reliability analyses, MA Soile Ukkola for illustrating the Cat Story, and Ph.D., psychologist Sanna Kuusikko-Gauffin for helping with the scoring of NEPSY-II. The authors also wish to thank the clinic of audio-phoniatrics at the University Hospital of Oulu, especially speech and language therapist Lempi Aitola and nurse Anita Nybacka for their help with recruiting the children with SLI. Special thanks go to all the children and their families who participated in this study.

Notes

¹Suvanto (2012) has carried out a narrative intervention study on Finnish children with language impairments diagnosed either SLI or delayed language development.