Assessing Narrative Skills in Children

1. Assessing Narrative Skills in Children Peter de Villiers (Smith College) Frances Burns (University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Vanderbilt University) Supported by NIH grant N01-DC-8-2104 * web page: www.umass.edu/AAE

2. Acknowledgements • Jill de Villiers Smith College • Elizabeth Engen Rhode Island School for the Deaf • Debbie Topal Rhode Island School for the Deaf • Harry Seymour University of Massachusetts • Barbara Pearson University of Massachusetts • Tempe Champion University of South Florida

3. Why Assess Narrative Skills? • Essential for continuity of personal memory, encoding of experiences, and social and cultural connection. • A major prerequisite language skill for adequate reading and writing development (Snow et al, 1998) • A test of the productive application of syntactic and semantic skills in functional communicative contexts. • A primary early form of extended discourse/ taking a sustained turn = decontextualized language with more complex syntactic forms..

4. What Aspects of Narrative to Assess? 1. What makes for a “well-formed narrative”? • Thematic coherence on the macro-level of plot and episode organization. • Linguistic cohesion or connectivity at the micro-level of noun phrases and clauses and their interrelationships across the discourse. • Appropriate elaboration of the different points of view of the characters. 2. What specific features of these properties of a well-formed narrative can be easily scored and will translate directly into intervention?

5. Narrative Coherence Plot/Episode Structure = “the landscape of action” (Bruner, 1986) • Setting/Introduction + Episode(s) + Resolution/Coda Episode Structure: • Onset/Initiation -- introducing the problem, goal, or event that initiates and motivates the action in an episode of the story. • Unfolding/Elaboration/Action Attempts -- development of the action of the protagonists in terms of actions and attempts to solve the problem or reach the goal. • Consequences -- immediate effects of each of these actions. • Resolution -- the outcome of these endeavors.

6. Narrative Cohesion • Referential Cohesion -- introducing, maintaining reference to, and contrasting the characters (or objects) in the story (Karmiloff-Smith, 1981). • Temporal and Causal Connectivity -- clearly marking the time and causal relationships between events (Berman & Slobin, 1994). • Foregrounding and Backgrounding -- placing the unfolding plotline events (the foreground) in the context of attendant circumstances in which they take place (Perrera, 1986).

7. Point of View and Evaluative Commentary • “the landscape of consciousness” (Bruner, 1986) -- talking about the mental states of the characters -- their emotional reactions, desires, and thoughts, and what they do and don’t know as events take place.

8. Linguistic Devices in Narrative • Referential Cohesion -- articles “a” and “the”, pronouns, names, adjectives, descriptive prepositional phrases, relative clauses. • Temporal and Causal Connectivity -- adverbs, adverbial phrases, adverbial clauses. • Foregrounding and Backgrounding -- adverbial clauses of time and place, often at the beginning of sentences. • Point of View / Evaluative Commentary -- mental state words and complement clauses.

9. How to Elicit Narratives • Open-ended stories from a topic prompt • Familiar “scripted” events (e.g., a birthday party) • Story retelling • Picture or video sequences -- long or short How well does the elicitation technique get the child to produce language that incorporates the narrative features we have outlined AND can be easily evaluated and scored for those features? For a more complete evaluation use more than one type.

10. Case Study 1: Coherence and Cohesion in the Written English Narratives of Deaf Students • Oral subjects: 63 eight to sixteen year olds, mean age 11;10. Average hearing loss 95dB (range 70 to 120). Hearing loss onset prior to 18 months. • Total Communication subjects: 56 eight to sixteen year olds, mean age 12;3. 14 with deaf parents (DoD), 42 with hearing parents (DoH) Average hearing loss 99dB (range 70 to 120). Hearing loss onset prior to 18 months.

11. Written Narrative Samples - 1 • One multi-episode narrative based on a wordless children’s story -- “The Pirate Story.” This was a multi-episode story chosen because it had three clear episodes, each of which depicted an initiating event or problem, an action or attempt to deal with that event, and a resolution or consequence of the action sequence. The story was presented twice in the form of 16 color slides. Then the students wrote the story from memory.

27. The End

28. Pirate Story sample -- Age = 9;6Hearing Loss 98dB, Reading Grade 1.6 The man carrying the boat. The man go the water. I ride the boat. The man fighting to the boat. The man shot the gun. The monster chseed the man. The monster shot the gun. The man take the monyey. The man take bringing the boat. The man to boat sount. The man think. The man fixing the boat.

29. Pirate Story sample -- Age = 12;5Hearing Loss 93dB, Reading Grade 3;4 The men and women carrying a big ship. They threw ship on the water. One ship is good, other is bad. The ship want to go to Skull and cross bones ship. The ship shoot connon Skull and cross bones ship. The skull and crossbones ship was under the water. The ship the winner. The monster want the ship, but he didn’t. The ship shoot arrow to moster. Monster was dead. Ship are going to look island. The men climb down get golds. They put in ship. The golds was hevey in ship. The ship fell in the water. Everybody swimming off the water. Everybody sat the island. They cut the tree. They fell the tree. Everybody going to made a new ship. The everybody o.k. The End.

30. Pirate Story sample -- Age = 13;3Hearing Loss 93dB, Reading Grade 5;0 There is a group of men that made a ship. They dicide to find a treasure. That day they were on the boat and travel until there was another boat. They had a war. The other ship lost and the pirate ship won. The pirate ship went to find the treasure. The Monster that was in the water heard the war and blew fire to the ship. One of the man killed the Monster. They went to find the treasure and when they got to the sandy island with a trap door, the men went down and took the treasure and left. But it was too heavy and the ship sank. The men swim to the island and live and made the ship forever. The End

31. Coherence -- Episode Completeness ( ) = oral students

32. Written Narrative Samples - 2 • Two short narratives based on picture sequence scenarios. These were designed to motivate the need to identify the characters in a contrastive way, to express temporal and causal relationships between events, and to refer to their mental states in explaining their actions. They were written with the picture sequence in front of the students all the time.

33. The Candy Stealing Story

34. The Balloon Popping Story

35. Candy Stealing Story sample -- Age = 9;6Hearing Loss 98dB, Reading Grade 1.6 He want to the candy The girl gave to the a penny The girl gave to the cookies The girl don’t went the cookies The girl dreaming police The girl gave penny The woman said thank you

36. Candy Stealing Story sample -- Age = 12;5Hearing Loss 93dB, Reading Grade 3;4 Kerian Steal Candy Bag Jane and Kerian went to the store. Jane like to buy some jelly bean in jar. Kerian saw candy in the shelf. Kerian want to steal some candy in the shelf. Then take candy and put in her purse. Kerian told Jane her, you want some candy, I steal candy bag in the shelf. Jane said no thank, because she learn in school. Kerian went to sleep. She dream about policeman take Kerian go to jail. Then went into the store. Kerian pay for Mrs. Williams. She said I’m sorry I steal candy bag in the shelf. Mrs. Williams said, that o.k. you won’t go to jail. Kerian feel O.K.

37. Candy Stealing Story sample -- Age = 13;3Hearing Loss 93dB, Reading Grade 5;0 There two girls in the store and one girl with a pocket purse. The girl was looking at the store lady and was stealing some candy on the counter, then they left. Outside the girl ask the girl who was buying the candy, and she didn’t wanted it. That night the girl had a bad dream about going to jail and the police took her. The next morning she went to the store and paid for the candy, and then the store lady was happy and pat her on the head! The girl went home happily!!

38. Cohesion-- Pronoun Use ( ) = oral students

39. Reference Specification ( ) = oral students

40. Temporal Links ( ) = oral students

41. Partial Correlations between Reading Comprehension level and Features of Written Narrative (controlling for Age and Hearing Loss) ** p<.01 *** p<.001

42. Assessing Narrative Skills in ChildrenCase Study 2: African-American English and Mainstream American English Children Frances Burns University of Massachusetts, Amherst

43. Previous Narrative Research • Only a few studies on narrative development have focused on children who speak a dialect other than mainstream American English (MAE). • Of these studies, an even smaller number have focused on the discourse skills of young children who speak African American English (AAE) (Champion,1998; 2003). • Previous studies of young AAE speakers have focused on their overall narrative structures and the content of their stories (Champion 2003).

44. Narrative Style in AAE Children • Michaels (1981), described the structure of African American children’s narratives as complex but different from those of middle class European American children. • The narratives of the majority of African American children were seen as topic-associating (TA) rather than the topic-centered, linear style that dominates early schooling. • Topic associating refers to a narrative style in which the “main topic is not explicitly stated but implied via a number of loosely connected episodes.” • Topic-centered refers to “a linear progression of information with explicit lexical temporal grounding and no significant shifts in temporal-spatial perspective.”

45. Topic-centered Organized around a single topic or closely related topics. Main characters and temporal/locational grounding remain constant and are lexically explicit. Clear thematic progression with beginning, middle and end. Topic-associating Organized around loosely linked topics with implied (associative) connections. Frequent shifts in key characters and temporal/locational grounding. Does not adhere to a linear pattern of organization. Narrative Style Contrasts

46. Example of Topic Associating Narrative (8;5 - girl) • 1. I live on lyme street • 2. it’s a nice place • 3. I got a- my auntie lives up there • 4. I was gonna go to my- another school • 5. this year I’m going to a different new school • 6. so I might be happy there • 7. but about my house • 8. I just love being at my house • 9. my cousins come over to play with me • 10. an sleep over sometimes • 11. sometimes I have slumber parties • 12. great! • 13. an den in the morning sometimes my mother takes us- my grandpa take us to the park • 14. get us mcdonald’s or ummm all of that • 15. sometimes he take us to the zoo • 16. an see all the animals • 17. it was fun at the zoo • 18. I saw the animals, bears • 19. it was great!

47. Example of Topic Centered Narrative (6;10 - girl) • 1. one day I was going over aunt’s house. • 2. then me and my cousin Jenea, we wanted to go to the liberry. • 3.then we got there and I was reading books. • 4. and then I wanted to um go on computers. • 5. so I signed up. • 6. but then we…which. • 7.uh then a magic show was um startin to come on. • 8. then this guy, he was just, he didn’t know where his magic hat was. • 9. so he made a hat with big balloons like clowns. • 10. and then after he made a hat he made um the duck out of balloons. • 11. um it was like that duck that’s on Michael Jordan. • 12. he made that of balloons. • 13. an then he, he had helpers. • 14. but he didn’t pick me. • 15. an then he, whoever go, whoever did the job he gave them a wand. • 16. an then when the magic show was done we, they had snacks. • 17. they had cracker fishes, cookies and juice. • 18. then I wanted to go a computer. • 19 but I forgot that I had to go on the computer. • 20. then we leff.

48. Further Research on Topic Associating Narrative Style • Hyon and Sulzby (1994), looked at the narrative styles of 48 African American low-income urban kindergarteners. • 58.3% of the narratives were topic centered. • 33.3% were topic associating.

49. Further Research on Topic Associating Narrative Style • Champion (1998), found that African American children, ages 6-10, produced a variety of narrative structures including the “classic” narrative structure. • In fact 66% of the narratives were classified as classic or topic-centered. As defined by Labov (1972), these narratives included an orientation, a complicating action, and a resolution, and then concluded with a coda. • Only 11% were classified as “performatives” or topic associating.

50. Current Research, Burns (2003)Study 1: Open-Ended Narratives • 21 typically developing African American children from the Northeast aged 5;9 to 11;6 (Mean age 8;2). • The participants were video-taped telling at least three open-ended stories to one adult African American listener. • The example topics (i.e., hurt, fieldtrip, a hero, vacation) were provided in order to prompt non-fictive narratives. • Fictitious narratives were discouraged because children may be tempted to tell fairytale or story book narratives that are limited in AAE features and perhaps bias the children toward topic-centered narratives.