M6: ASSESSMENT 4: NARRATIVE SKILLS, ASSESSMENT, ANALYSIS

NARRATIVES

Telling/retelling stories of real or imaginary events

Causal and temporal relations

Core skills: foundation to academic and social abilities

Rich source of linguistic data (short and long-term memory, attention, temporal events)

FICTIONAL STORIES

→ animate beings carrying out a goal

→ relates fictional past, present

→ used by children to express emotions

ACCOUNT (UNPROMPTED)

→ spontaneous personal narrative

→ relating own experiences

→ nonfiction accounts of specific events

→ usually told to listeners who are not part of the event

SCRIPT

→ verbal accounts of routines

→ light demand on processing, because it is already preprocessed or conventionalized

→ told in present tense

→ written in present tense

RECOUNT (PROMPTED)

→ prompted personal narratives

→ expressed using past tense

→ typically report actual, unique experiences

EVENT CAST

→ description of ongoing activities or plan for future activities 

→ report of factual scenes

→ directing others to play roles

HOW TO ANALYZE NARRATIVES

ELICIT → TRANSCRIBE, SEGMENT, MARK → ANALYZE

ELICIT

 What narrative will I elicit; What procedure/s will I use; Choose narrative type; Choose and plan procedures for elicitation

COLLECTING NARRATIVES

SPONTANEOUS NARRATIVES

→can be a recording of a conversational sample between 2 children, parent and child, clinician and child

→ authentic, less artificial, more valid

ELICITING NARRATIVES

→ What type of narrative will I elicit?

→ How structured or direct the request for the narrative will be?

Oral < ______

Written

Retell < _______

Generation

Personal < ________

fictional

Pictures < ________

no pictures

Preschool

PERSONAL NARRATIVES	SCRIPT	FICTIONAL NARRATIVE
✅	✅	Story retelling

K-3

PERSONAL NARRATIVES	SCRIPT	FICTIONAL NARRATIVE
✅	✅	Story retelling; With visual stimuli; Context shared

Grades 4-6

PERSONAL NARRATIVES	SCRIPT	FICTIONAL NARRATIVE
✅	✅	Story generation & retelling; With visual stimuli; Context shared or not shared

Grades 7-9

PERSONAL NARRATIVES	SCRIPT	FICTIONAL NARRATIVE
—	✅	Story generation & retelling; With/without visual stimuli; Context shared or not shared

Grades 10-12

PERSONAL NARRATIVES	SCRIPT	FICTIONAL NARRATIVE
—	—	Story generation & retelling; Without visual stimuli; context not shared

PERSONAL NARRATIVES

Story prompts: spontaneous interactions, you have to tell a story to get a story, ask the child to talk about experiences that mean to them

Uses relatively neutral subprompts: no response is a response, avoid saying too much

Collect at least three narratives

→ don’t use the same story prompts

→ no story appeals equally

Minimize the child’s self-consciousness

→ conversation > test

Don’t rush the child

CLINICIANS ARE ENCOURAGED TO

Repeat the exact words of children when they pause

“Uh-huh”

“Tell me more”

“Then, what happened?”

Recently acquired sibling

Birthday parties

Death

AVOID TOPICS ABOUT

FICTIONAL NARRATIVES

STORY GENERATION

STORY RETELLING

→ no model  → more representative of  → words come from repertoire  → child uses own organizational structures → informal assessment data

→ with model → sequence of events, how detailed → suitable for young children → clinician (greater control) → narrative length, complexity, error analyses, and reliability → some standardized tests

STORY GENERATION

→ no model 

→ more representative of 

→ words come from repertoire 

→ child uses own organizational structures

→ informal assessment data

STORY RETELLING

→ with model

→ sequence of events, how detailed

→ suitable for young children

→ clinician (greater control) → narrative length, complexity, error analyses, and reliability

→ some standardized tests

STIMULI SELECTION

→ level of comprehension needed to understand the story

→ story length 

→ familiarity and interest in the story

→ exposure to genre

→ stimulus presentation

VISUAL SUPPORTS

Single picture

Picture sequences

Movie or video

Object or props

VERBAL INSTRUCTIONS

→ general verbal instructions: “make up s story about something that is not real.”; “what movie have you seen recently?”

→ use story starters or stems

CONTEXT SHARED

Child and clinician are both aware of the context

CONTEXT NOT SHARED

→ clinician or listener has no knowledge about the story or stimuli 

→ greater demand on speaker

VERBAL INSTRUCTIONS

Ask questions:  → “tell me all the things that happen when you…”  → “what do you do when there is a… at school/in church?” → “when you go to… what happens?”

Guide the child to use present tense and pronoun “you”

Remind the child “what usually happens”

SCRIPT NARRATIVES OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Recording

Physical setting

Keep the story going → using neutral prompts → backchanneling responses → repetition of child’s utterances

TRANSCRIBING NARRATIVES

Transcribe the sample; Segment the sample into CUs or T-Units; Mark verbal disruptions 

HANDWRITTEN

→ paper and pen

→ use different colored pen/markers

COMPUTERIZED

→ codes for human analysis of transcripts (CHAT) 

→ systematic analysis of language transcripts (SALT)

COMMUNICATION UNITS (CU)

→ each independent clause with its modifiers 

→ usually for ORAL narratives

MINIMAL TERMINABLE UNIT (T-UNIT)

→ one main clause and all the subordinate clauses attached to it 

→ for WRITTEN narrative

→ shortest unit which is grammatically allowable to punctuate as a sentence

RULES FOR COUNTING CU

1. CLAUSE

2. SENTENCE FRAGMENTS

3. ELLIPTICAL RESPONSES

4. YES/NO RESPONSES

5. TAGS

6. DIALOGUE COMPLEMENT/COMPLEMENT

7. PAUSES AND INTONATION

8. TITLE AND ENDING WITH MAIN CLAUSE

9. VERBATIM REPETITION

10. DO NOT INCLUDE ABANDONED UTTERANCES

CLAUSE

→ predicate and subject

→ main (independent) clause 

→ subordinate (dependent) clause 

→ main + subordinate = 1CU

SENTENCE FRAGMENTS

→ separate C-units when the final intonation contour of the utterance indicate complete thought

ELLIPTICAL RESPONSES

→ questions or prompts from the examiner are counted as separate C-units

YES/NO RESPONSES

→ if a question or intonation prompt is posed, segment the yes/no response from the subsequent utterance when succeeded by complete C-unit 

→ intonation prompt is posed, do not segment to stand alone when followed by an incomplete utterance/c-unit

→ utterance begins with an affirmation or starter, do not segment the affirmation/starter from subsequent words

TAGS

→ do not segment phrases: “you know”, “i guess”, “i mean” when used as tags

→ do not segment questions when they are used as tags

DIALOGUE COMPLEMENT/COMPLEMENT

→ embedded in, or as part of an utterances are counted as one C-unit

→ successive mainclauses that occur in dialogue quotes are counted as separate c-units

PAUSES AND INTONATION

→ do not ignore pauses and intonation when segmenting utterances, 

→ whenever reasonable, segment utterances based on grammar rules 

→ significant pause/utterance ends with intonation (:02) → prompts in bet.

RULES FOR SEGMENTING T-UNITS

1. Each unit can be terminated with a capital letter and period

2. Put a # above each word that begins a new t-unit

3. Make a slash at the end of each clause when there is more than 1 t-unit

4. Count the number (#) of words in each t-unit

5. Write the number of words above each units

MEAN LENGTH OF CU IN WORDS

= TOTAL # WORDS/ TOTAL CU

RULES FOR COUNTING WORDS

1. Count coordination conjunctions

2. Count contractions as 2 words (I’m → I am → 2W)

3. Do not count words in parenthesis (verbal disruptions)

4. Do not count title and engine without main clause

MAZE

→ Any filled pause, false start, repetition, or reformulation, marked by enclosing that part of the utterance in parentheses 

→ not counted as part of utterance, excluded from MLU counts and other values

→ remaining words can stand alone if removed

ABANDONED UTTERANCES

Unfinished utterances followed by a new CU or T-unit

GARBLES

False starts, abnormal redundancies, word tangles, stalls, fillers 

UNINTELLIGIBLE UTTERANCES

Can’t understand → you can’t analyze the utterance

STARTERS

Okay so…

EXOPHORIC COMMENTS

“The end. That’s all I can think of”

PERSONAL QUALIFIERS

“I think” “ I don’t know” “I guess”

SENTENCE TAGS

“You know…”

SILENT PAUSES

→ more than 2 seconds: noticeable, worth counting  

→ 6 secs (inappropriate pause length)

MACROSTRUCTURE

→ Narrative’s global, general properties; overall coherence and organization; structural characteristics of the entire narrative 

→ Applebee’s six levels or narrative structure analysis; episodic analysis or story grammar analysis; high point analysis; macroanalysis of scripts

MICROSTRUCTURE

→ narrative’s local or more specific properties 

→ cohesion analysis, grammatical units analysis, lexical diversity

ANALYSIS PROCEDURES

1. What type of drugs was gathered?

2. Which analysis system is appropriate for our client

3. Analyze each CU/FU

4. Identify the narrative level

STORY GRAMMAR ELEMENTS

SETTING

INTIATING EVENT/PROBLEM

INTERNAL RESPONSE

INTERNAL PLAN

ATTEMPT

CONSEQUENCE

RESOLUTION OR REACTION

ENDING

SETTING

Character, location, time

INTIATING EVENT/PROBLEM

Sets the event in motion; problem that requires a solution

INTERNAL RESPONSE

Protagonist’s response to IE; feelings of character

INTERNAL PLAN

Character’s plan to solve the problem

ATTEMPT

Protagonist’s action to solve the problem

CONSEQUENCE

Consequence of the attempt; causally linked to the attempt

RESOLUTION OR REACTION

Final state or situation triggered by IE

ENDING

Statement that states that the story is over

STORY STRUCTURE LEVELS

ISOLATED DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTIVE SEQUENCE

ACTION SEQUENCE

REACTIVE SEQUENCE

ABBREVIATED EPISODE

INCOMPLETE, COMPLETE, MULTIPLE EPISODES

COMPLEX EPISODE, EMBEDDED EPISODE

INTERACTIVE EPISODE

PRE-SCHOOL

DESCRIPTIVE SEQUENCE

ACTION SEQUENCE

REACTIVE SEQUENCE

6 YEARS OLD

ABBREVIATED EPISODE

7-8 YEARS OLD

INCOMPLETE, COMPLETE, MULTIPLE EPISODES

11 YEARS OLD

COMPLEX EPISODE, EMBEDDED EPISODE

12+ YEARS OLD

INTERACTIVE EPISODE

APPLEBEE’S SIX LEVELS

HEAPS

SEQUENCES

PRIMITIVE NARRATIVES

UNFOCUSED CHAINS

FOCUSED CHAINS

TRUE NARRATIVES

NARRATIVE SUMMARIES

COMPLEX NARRATIVES

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

GENERALIZATION

2 years

HEAPS

2-3 years

SEQUENCES

3-4 years

PRIMITIVE NARRATIVES

4-4 ½ years

UNFOCUSED CHAINS

5 years

FOCUSED CHAINS

6-7 years

TRUE NARRATIVES

7-11 years

NARRATIVE SUMMARIES

11-12 years

COMPLEX NARRATIVES

13-15 years

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

16+ years

GENERALIZATION

CENTERING

→ parts of a story cluster around a central idea

→ “Linking attributes to form a strong nucleus” (Owens, 1999)

LINKS ARE BASED ON
SIMILARITY	COMPLEMENTARITY
Perceptually-observed attributes (actions, characters, situations)	Abstract, logical attributes (members of a class or events linked by cause-effect)

SIMILARITY

Perceptually-observed attributes (actions, characters, situations)

COMPLEMENTARITY

Abstract, logical attributes (members of a class or events linked by cause-effect)

CHAINING

Sequencing of events that share attributes and leads directly from one another (Hedberg & Stoel-Gammon, 1896)

PERSONAL NARRATIVES

1. SELECT THE LONGEST NARRATIVE

2. IDENTIFY THE NARRATIVE MACROSTRUCTURE

3. IDENTIFY THE EVALUATED HIGH POINT

4. IDENTIFY AGE APPROPRIATENESS OF NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

PARTS OF A PERSONAL NARRATIVE

Introducer and/or abstract

Orientation

Complicating action

Resolution

Coda

Evaluation

STRUCTURAL PATTERNS

TWO-EVENT

LEAPFROG

END-AT-HIGH POINT

CLASSIC

CHRONOLOGICAL

Impoverished

Disoriented

Miscellanous

3-4 years old

TWO-EVENT

4 years old

LEAPFROG

5 years old

END-AT-HIGH POINT

6 years old

CLASSIC

All ages

CHRONOLOGICAL

No typical age

Impoverished

Disoriented

Miscellanous