Do vocabulary and narrative skills correlate in preschoolers with typical language development?

To characterize the performance of preschoolers with typical language development in tasks of expressive vocabulary and oral narrative and to verify possible correlations.

The study included 39 children aged 4 to 6 years old, of both genders, with no complaints about language development. Mothers answered a questionnaire of socioeconomic classification, while the ABFW Vocabulary Test was used to evaluate the vocabulary and the book "Frog, where are you?" was used to elicit the child's oral narrative. The data collected were submitted to descriptive and inferential statistical analysis.

Regarding expressive vocabulary, the majority of preschoolers (92.3%) had the usual verbal designation (UVD) suitable for the age group, and the semantic fields with the highest UVD were "animals", "shapes and colors", "toys and musical instruments", "transportation" and those with children were "professions" and "local". The predominant type of narrative was causal, followed by intentional. There was no correlation between UVD and the use of words in the narratives, but there was a positive correlation between the total and the number of different words used in the narrative.

There was no correlation between the expressive vocabulary (UVD) and the use of words in the narrative, but the preschoolers who used more words in their narratives also showed greater lexical variety in this sample.