Language Proficiency and Narrative Macrostructure in Spanish-English Bilingual Children

Bilingual children of the same age may differ in narrative skills depending on their experiences in each language. This study examined the effects of Spanish and English language proficiency on the production of macrostructural elements in oral story retell tasks by Spanish-English bilingual children.

Forty typically developing Spanish-English-speaking children, 5-7 years of age, participated in this study. For each language, five multiple regressions were conducted to estimate the effects of Spanish and English language proficiency on narrative macrostructure on five dependent variables: two global measures (total number of elements and number of complete episodes) and the three elements of a complete episode (initiating events, actions, and outcomes), based on Spanish and English oral narrative samples.

In Spanish, language proficiency accounted for the variability in all outcome measures except initiating events and actions. In English, proficiency accounted for the variability in all outcome measures except outcomes.

Results suggested that Spanish and English proficiency affects children's oral narrative skills, with differential effects across outcome measures in each language.