Narrative Abilities of Children with Learning Disabilities and Nondisabled Children

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to compare narrative abilities of learning disabled and nondisabled students across four story difficulty levels and across three vocabulary age groups. Independent variables to be studied included story events correct, story structures, propositions, and cohesive devices. Results indicated that the students with learning disabilities were generally able to reconstruct stories as well as nondisabled students. However, significant differences were shown between groups within each level of analysis. Developmental differences in performance were evident on all measures and the use of line drawings appeared to have a negative influence on recall for all subjects. The self-generated story students were told to produce to accompany line drawings appeared less well constructed than the retold stories, except for the Internal Response category. Specific patterns were demonstrated in the retold and self-generated narratives assessment of children with learning disabilities and nondisabled children. Narrative abilities appear to offer useful information regarding language skills beyond the sentence level.