"Once Upon a Time" — Aspects of Story-Telling in Normal and Retarded Children

Abstract

Previous studies of the language of retarded children have indicated that their understanding and use of language is poor when compared with their mental age and that they are more preoccupied with the "here and now" rather than past or future events. Fifty 4-year-olds, 50 5-year-olds and 50 E.S.N.(M) (moderately educationally subnormal) children were presented with a story-telling task using a book of pictures. A linguistic analysis was made of each story using a clausal analysis. The types of clauses, number of clauses, use of the past tense, and use of conjunctions were assessed. A longitudinal study of 12 of the E.S.N.(M) and 12 of the normal children was also carried out over one year. The longitudinal study showed a rapid increase in the use of the past tense in the normal children only, and that the length of story and use of tense were far less consistent over time in individual E.S.N.(M) children than in the normal children. There was no significant difference between the E.S.N.(M) and normal children of the same mental age in the cross-sectional study on any of the variables except in the use of conjunctions. It is suggested that there appears to be a difference in approach to language use that may reflect both social class and a slower developmental rate.