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The Emergence of Narrative Skills in Typically
Developing Children and Children with Unilateral
Brain Injury Joan A. Fisher, Susan C. Levine,
Susan Goldin-Meadow The University of Chicago
Introduction
Conclusions
Conditions
Results
Children with pre- or perinatal lesions (PL) show
plasticity for early language skills, although
their performance may decline as the tasks become
increasingly complex (Chilosi et al, 2001
Feldman, 2005 Levine et al, 2005 Reilly et al,
1998 Stiles et al, 2005). We compared narrative
skills in typically developing (TD, n51) and
children with PL (n10) at 5 years of age, when
childrens stories start to become better
integrated, more goal-based, with more complex
story structure (Berman Slobin, 1994, Stein,
1988, Trabasso et al, 1992). Stories were
presented to children in multiple formats (silent
cartoon, storyteller in audio only, storyteller
with hands resting in lap, or storyteller using
gesture). We predicted that children with
newly emerging narrative skills or compromised
language skills would retell stories better when
the information was presented in a rich,
multimodal format, e.g., with gesture
supplementing speech.
Main Effect of Group TD PL on both measures.
PL TD groups differed in the number of story
events they recalled and the story structure they
used. The difference between TD and PL was
driven by the size of the lesion. However,
children with large lesions benefited from
learning stories told using gesture. Thus,
stories presented in multimodal formats resulted
in more complex retellings and better memory for
story events in children with mild language
delays.
All stories had multiple episodes and a goal.
Cartoon
Main Effect of Lesion Size Children with large
lesions recalled fewer story events and formed
less structured stories than TD children. The
main effect for lesion size was F(3,60)3.4,
p0.025 for events recalled and F(3,60)3.9,
p0.014 for story structure.
Audio Two friends take an afternoon nap at the
beach. Mouse leans against an old bottle and
Ellie snores. Ellie snores so loudly that it
wakes Mouse up. He tosses and he turns, but he
just can't sleep with the noise. Mouse looks
around for some way to stop the snoring. Ah, the
cork from the old bottle should do the
trick! Mouse sticks the cork into Ellies trunk
and all is quiet. Mouse goes back to sleep, but
Ellie is blowing up. The cork pops out and hits
Mouse on the head. Now both friends are awake, so
naptime must be over.
Ongoing Research
Investigate the relation between narrative skills
and reading skills. Examine the effect the
lesions have on subsequent development. Evaluate
the impact of lesion size and type using high
resolution MRI. Assess whether TD children with
compromised language skills also benefit from
learning narratives in a multimodal format.
No Gesture
Lesion Size and Condition Interaction Children
with large lesions recalled more story events and
formed more structured stories in the Gesture
condition than the other conditions.
Methods
Gesture
References
Berman, R. A., Slobin, D. I. (1994). Relating
Events in Narrative A Crosslinguistic
Developmental Study. Hillsdale, N.J. Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Chilosi, A. M.,
Cipriani, P., Bertuccelli, B., et al (2001).
Journal of Child Neurology, 16(5),
309-316. Feldman, H. M. (2005). Language Learning
and Development., 1(3-4), 265-288. Levine, S. C.,
Kraus, R., Alexander, E., et al (2005). Brain and
Cognition, 59(2), 114-123. Reilly, J., Bates, E.
A., Marchman, V. A. (1998). Brain and Language,
61(3), 335-375. Stein, N. L. (1988). The
development of children's storytelling skill. In
M. B. Franklin S. S. Barten (Eds.), Child
Language A Reader. New York Oxford University
Press. Stiles, J., Reilly, J., Paul, B., Moses,
P. (2005). Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Vol,
9(3), 136-143. Trabasso, T., Stein, N. L.,
Rodkin, P. C., et al (1992). Cognitive
Development, 7, 133-170.

• Children were visited in their homes as part of a
  longitudinal language project.
• The Research Assistant told children they were
  going to play a storytelling game that some of
  the stories would be told in a cartoon, some
  would be told by a storyteller.
• RA introduced characters and objects in a still
  image.
• Story played on a DVD player.
• RA asked, Can you tell me the story, as much as
  you remember?
• Children spoke until they indicated to the RA
  that they were done.
• RA asked comprehension questions.

Analyses
Lesion Size
Retellings were transcribed and coded by the
first author. Values for each condition were
based on two different stories (8 stories in 4
conditions). Events Recalled the number of
events in the original story that children
recalled in the retelling. Higher Order
Structure 0No Structure, 1Descriptive
Sequence, 2Action Sequence, 3Incomplete
Episode, 4Single Episode with Goal, 5Multiple
Episodes with Goal.
Small (n4)
Medium (n3)
Large (n3)
Acknowledgements
RAs for children with PL RAs for TD
children Meredith Simone Laura Chang Sarah
Gripshover Calla Trofatter Kelsey
Harden Lauren King Ece Demir, Seyda
Özçaliskan, Raedy Ping, Anjali Raja, Meredith
Rowe, Eve Sauer, Kristi Schonwald, Jason Voigt
Maggie (the storyteller) Kendall NIH/NICHD
funding P01-HD40604-01A1 MausSpots can be found
at www.die-maus.de Correspondence
joan_at_uchicago.edu