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Updated: May 23, 2026
07:56
Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
Published on: September 19, 2019
Dialect-neutral indices of narrative cohesion and evaluation
Frances A Burns1, Peter A de Villiers, Barbara Z Pearson
1University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. fburns@comdis.umass.edu
Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools
|April 12, 2012
Summary
African American English (AAE) and General American English (GAE) speaking children show similar narrative skill development. Dialect did not significantly impact narrative elements like mental states or temporal expressions.
Area of Science:
- Linguistic development
- Child language acquisition
- Sociolinguistics
Background:
- Narrative skills are crucial for academic and social success.
- Understanding dialectal variations in language development is essential.
- Previous research has not fully explored dialect-neutral narrative components.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare narrative skill development in African American English (AAE) and General American English (GAE) speaking children.
- To analyze four key indices of narrative language: reference contrasting, temporal expressions, mental state descriptions, and false belief understanding.
- To investigate the impact of dialect on these narrative elements.
Main Methods:
- 291 AAE and 238 GAE speaking children (ages 4-9) participated.
- Children narrated two stories based on picture sequences.
- Narratives were coded for four key indices; analyses included age, dialect, and clinical status.
Main Results:
- Age and clinical status significantly affected narrative measures.
- No statistically significant differences were found between AAE and GAE speakers in narrative skill development.
- Dialect was not a significant factor in the analyzed narrative elements.
Conclusions:
- Focusing on dialect-neutral narrative elements provides valuable insights into language development.
- This study enhances understanding of narrative production in both AAE- and GAE-background children.
- Findings support the importance of considering universal aspects of narrative competence across diverse linguistic backgrounds.
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