Young children have difficulty taking into account the degree of knowledge they share with their interlocutor when they first mention a new referent. This difficulty is especially pronounced for children with specific language impairment (SLI). The purpose of this study is to examine first mentions of referents in the storytelling productions of French-speaking children (ages 6–7years, 8–9years and 10–11years), adopting a pragmatic and functional point of view. We study the linguistic units they use, the appropriateness of these expressions, and their position in syntactic constructions. The comparison of typical children and children with SLI shows both similarities and differences. Both populations use NPs more frequently than pronouns for the first mention of a referent. But children with SLI make significantly fewer appropriate first mentions, especially with non-informed interlocutors. These children also differ from TD children in how they use specific constructions (such as left dislocations and presentational constructions). These differences appear between 6 and 9 y.o.; at 10–11 y.o. children with SLI tend to perform similarly to TD children. The results are consistent with the hypothesis of a pragmatic and morphosyntactic deficit in children with SLI.