culturally sensitive assessment of narrative skills in children

SEMINARS IN SPEECH AND LANGUAGE—VOLUME 21, NUMBER 3 2000

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CULTURALLY SENSITIVE ASSESSMENTOF NARRATIVE SKILLS IN CHILDREN

Pamela Rosenthal Rollins, MS CCC, Ed.D.,*Allyssa McCabe, Ph.D.,† and Lynn Bliss, Ph.D.‡

ABSTRACT—The clinical legacy of William Labov’s narrative analysis frame-

work is explored. In recent years, the importance of narration for children’s de-

veloping literacy and discourse skills has been widely recognized. This article

describes a three-step process for assessing children’s narrative discourse:

elicitation, coding, and scoring. The influences of cultural differences on narra-

tion are also presented, with implications and suggestions for culturally sensi-

tive assessment.

KEY WORDS: assessing narrative skills, children’s literacy, discourse

analysis

*Program in Communication Disorders, University of Texas at Dallas, Callier Center forCommunication Disorders, Dallas, Texas; †Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts-Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts; ‡Department of Communication Disorders, University of Houston,

Houston, Texas

Reprint requests: Dr. Pamela Rollins, Program in Communication Disorders, University of Texas atDallas, Callier Center for Communication Disorders, 1966 Inwood Road, Dallas, TX 75214. E-mail:

[email protected]

Copyright © 2000 by Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc., 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001,USA. Tel: +1(212)584-4662. 0734-0478,p;2000,21,03,223,234,ftx,en;ssl00050x

Skilled reading requires more than thedecoding skill predicted by phonologicalawareness; it requires general oral languagecompetencies, particularly in narrative dis-course.1–8 Stated differently, narrative dis-course development has strong implicationsfor emergent literacy skills3 because theability to tell a coherent narrative predatesand predicts successful adaptation to schoolliteracy. Thus, by facilitating narrative dis-course skills, early intervention for literacy-related problems could begin long before achild begins reading instruction.

That said, there are many kinds of nar-rative discourse, including fictional storytelling and retelling, event casting, and fac-tual personal memory narrating. William

Labov9 was the first major researcher to fo-cus attention on personal narratives.Labov’s focus on fact over fiction provedauspicious for the field of speech-languagepathology, because it has been found thatchildren’s personal narratives develop struc-tural complexity before fictional narra-tives,10 an important consideration for as-sessment protocols. Labov focused oncomponents of personal narratives, whichhe called orientation, evaluation, and com-plicating action (defined below). He alsoadvanced a conception of a narrative’s over-all structure, which he called high pointstructure (also defined below). Labov’sgroundbreaking work proved to be an in-valuable tool for a new generation of re-


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searchers and clinicians. As we will demon-strate, a focus on preschool oral personalnarratives, using a Labovian framework,gives us the opportunity to assess children atrisk of developing reading difficulties evenbefore they enter the first grade.

It was McCabe and Peterson,11,12 whofirst extended Labov’s analytic approach tothe analysis of personal event narratives oftypically developing children ages 3 1/

2to 9.

These investigators corroborated Labov’sfinding that young children’s narratives arecomposed of orientation (i.e., descriptiveinformation about the setting of a narra-tive), action (i.e., discrete, sequenced pasttense events that together constitute somelarger happening), evaluation (i.e., the nar-rator’s feelings about who, what, when,where, and why something happened), andappendages (abstracts that start the narra-tive or codas that close it). McCabe and Pe-terson found that most narrative commentsare blends of these constituents. For exam-ple, evaluation comments occurred in storyorientations or actions in 35% of the narra-tive statements and in isolated statements in15% of the narrative statements.

McCabe and Peterson also foundLabov’s conception of a narrative’s overallstructure to be a useful starting point forcharacterizing younger children’s produc-tions. Their work demonstrated a definitedevelopmental sequence for high-point nar-rative structure in European North Ameri-can (ENA) children. By 6 years of age, ENAchildren are able to tell what Labov consid-ered a well-formed story, one that orientsthe listener to who, what, and where some-thing happened; that retells the sequenceof events that builds to some sort of climaxor high point; and that then goes on to re-solve itself by telling how things turned out.That is, ENA children aged 6 and older typi-cally produce what is called a classic highpoint narrative (Table 1).

McCabe & Rollins13 adapted the re-search on narrative high point analyses intoa clinical research tool for use by speech-language pathologists in appraising chil-dren’s narrative skills. This procedure wasintended to assist clinicians in observing the

development, over time, of the typical nar-rative structure found in young ENA chil-dren. Because narrative structure is influ-enced by cultural style, as well as languagedevelopment, clinicians need to know thenarrative styles of a child’s community andbe flexible in their narrative analyses in or-der to avoid misdiagnoses. Champion etal.14 used the McCabe and Rollins proce-dure with African-American (AA) children.These investigators found that, in struc-tured interviews with adults, AA childrenproduced more classic narratives than didENA children. Similarly, Crago et al.15

found that Algonquin children also used ahigh-point narrative structure; however, un-like ENA and AA children, Algonquin chil-dren often ended their narratives at thehigh point. Within the Algonquin culture,ending at the high point served as a stylisticdevice in order to keep the listener in thestory.16 Chinese children also tended to endtheir narratives at the high-point.16

Japanese and Latino children may notprovide as much narrative detail as ENAand AA children, and they do not necessar-ily elaborate on one event.4 Nonetheless,children from these other cultures do usethe Labovian components of personal nar-ratives. For example, in a manner reminis-cent of haiku, Japanese children tell suc-cinct collections of experiences, often givenin sets of three lines, rather than narratingthe details of what happened on one occa-sion.17 Speakers from Spanish-speakingcommunities may produce short narrativeswith minimal actions and event sequencing,whereas orientations and evaluations areemphasized.18,19 Hawaiian children may tell“talk-stories” that weave teasing and fantasyinto repetitive routines for a number ofparticipants.20

Thus, narratives from different culturalgroups are distinctly organized. A samplediffering from typical ENA structure may re-flect cultural variation, not impaired narra-tion. However, it is equally important not tomistake impaired narration for cultural vari-ation. This is especially true because knowl-edge and competency with discourse struc-ture provides access to learning.15,21

NARRATIVE ASSESSMENT

The following discussion presents athree-step process for narrative assessmentdesigned to avoid cultural bias. The firsttwo steps, eliciting and coding of children’snarratives, are the same regardless of cul-ture. The third step, scoring the narrative,will differ depending on the child’s culturalmembership. It is true that more informa-tion continues to be available regardingscoring the narratives of children fromENA and AA cultures. Nonetheless, whatlimited information does exist about chil-dren from other cultures provides guid-ance to speech-language pathologists inour effort to distinguish between culturaldifferences and disordered narratives inthese children.

Step 1: Eliciting the Narrative

The elicitation procedure for collect-ing personal event narratives from youngchildren is as important as the narrative it-self. The quality and structure of a child’snarrative are affected by many factors thatmust be controlled during an assessment.The speech-language pathologist must takecare to control the genre of the narrativeelicited, where the narrative is elicited (thesetting), what the child is being asked to do(the task), and how s/he responds to thechild’s narrative (clinician feedback).

The Genre

Descriptions of personal experiencesoccur naturally when children conversewith their parents11 and with each other22

and is considered an important form ofclassroom discourse.15 Furthermore, youngchildren are able to structure their oral per-sonal narratives by more sophisticatedmeans than scripts or fictional stories.10

Children begin to refer to past eventsat around 2 years of age.23–25 Their earlynarratives often concern negative pastevents, especially injuries,26 and they arepreoccupied with themes of aggression andmisfortune throughout the preschoolyears.27,28 As children move into preschoolage (e.g., at ages 3 to 5), they tell longerand more complex personal narratives andrespond increasingly to narratives fromtheir peers.29 In other words, abundant evi-dence documents that a major segment ofchildren’s discourse comprises personalnarratives, which in turn form the basis ofmany social interactions. For these reasons,McCabe and colleagues maintain that elicit-ing personal event narratives is the most ap-propriate narrative assessment for youngpreschool and early elementary children.12

Specific suggestions and story prompts areprovided in Figure 1.

The Setting

Experience has shown that the settingin which a narrative is elicited makes a dif-

CULTURALLY SENSITIVE ASSESSMENT OF NARRATIVE SKILLS IN CHILDREN—ROLLINS ET AL.

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TABLE 1. Developmental Sequence for High-Point Narrative Structure

Typical Age

Narrative Structure Characteristic (years)

One-event narrative Contains one past event Before 31⁄2Two-event narrative Contains two past events 31⁄2Miscellaneous narrative Contains two or more related past eventsLeapfrog narrative Contains two or more related past events but the 4

events are not time ordered and/or there are omission ofcritical events (i.e., “jumping around and leaving thingsout”)

Chronology Contains two or more related past events in logical Present at all agesor casual sequence but no high point

End-at-high-point Contains two or more related past events in logical 5narrative or casual sequence; has a high-point but no resolution

Classic high-point Contains two or more related past events in logical 6 and oldernarrative or casual sequence; has a high-point and a resolution

ference in the type of narrative the childtells. For example, African-American chil-dren are often reported to use a “chaining”narrative structure with their peers duringclassroom activities, such as “show and tell”and “sharing time,”30 yet they use more clas-sic narratives in structured interviews withan adult using the procedure describedbelow.14

The Task

What we require children to narratemakes a difference in the complexity oftheir narratives. Picture story retelling, ascompared with story generation withoutpictures, results in longer, more detailedproductions that contain more frequentcomplete episodes in the terms of storygrammar analysis. Although many formaland informal procedures for assessing nar-rative production require the child to retella story using picture prompts, story re-tellings may not be the optimal approachfor assessing narratives in young children.Many studies that have used story retellingas a means of eliciting narratives find no dif-ference between the narratives of childrenwho are achieving normally and children di-agnosed as having specific language impair-ment or learning disabilities.13 This may be,in part, because even children without lan-guage disorders often become confusedand exhibit word-finding difficulties as theygenerate stories around picture stimuli and,in part, because children do not typicallygenerate such stories naturally. Therefore,we advocate that the assessment of narrative

skills in preschool children be based upon achild’s personal narrative about a real pastevent.

In spontaneous interactions, it is easierto encourage people to talk about their ex-periences if you share your own first. Forthis reason, McCabe & Peterson31 devel-oped an informal conversational procedureusing a conversational map of storyprompts. This approach has been used suc-cessfully by speech-language pathologists toevaluate children’s narratives from a varietyof cultural backgrounds.4,13,14,32 A conversa-tional map for a bee sting and a cut injuryare shown in Figure 1. The exact content ofthe story prompt is not important per se, aslong as the child is asked to talk about anexperience that means something to him orher. In general, children are likely to telltheir best stories about being hurt orscared. These are experiences that almostall children have had and, perhaps becauseof their novelty and emotional impact, areimportant enough to be shared. Differentstory prompts will appeal more to some chil-dren than others, depending upon theirparticular interests and experiences. Thus,it is important to collect at least three narra-tives from each child. In that way, thespeech-language pathologist increases thechances of offering a discussion event thatthe child really wants to talk about. Certainobvious topics should be avoided. For exam-ple, talking about a new sibling or a deathcan produce truncated narratives even fromvery gifted storytellers. Also, speech-language pathologists should avoid promptsabout birthday parties or other activitiesthat may yield scripted knowledge. Success-ful prompts that we favor include beingstung by a bee, going the doctors, being cut,or being in a car accident.

While collecting personal event narra-tives, it is important not to rush the child.The child should be comfortable with theclinician and feel open to sharing his or herexperiences. Thus, it is important to mini-mize the child’s self-consciousness whencollecting a narrative. The child should re-gard the interaction not as a test, but ratheras a time of sharing.


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1. Stung by a bee:I was sweeping the porch the other day and I picked upa flower pot and there was a bee underneath it and itSTUNG me. Did anything like that ever happen toyou?2. Cut(Clinician points to bandage on finger.) See this Band-Aid on my finger? Yesterday I was cutting an apple andthe knife slipped and I CUT myself. Did anything likethat ever happen to you?

Figure 1. Story Prompts


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Clinician Feedback

Narratives are constructed between twopeople; what is elicited by the clinician influ-ences what the child says. Children are accus-tomed to telling stories to parents, who re-spond to their stories and often ask questionsthat help elicit specific parts of the narrative.This is especially true when children, as theytypically do, have a hard time telling theirstory. During an assessment, speech-lan-guage pathologists need to be responsive. Achild who is met with no response duringnarration will interpret the silence as disin-terest and truncate the narrative. At the sametime, it is important to avoid leading thechild through the narrative. Instead, clini-cians should use relatively neutral prompts,much as they do in collecting other sponta-neous language samples.33 While collecting anarrative, speech-language pathologists maywant to use natural prompts, such as (1) re-peating the exact words used by the childrenwhen they pause, (2) saying “uh-huh” and“tell me more”; and/or, (3) asking “thenwhat happened?”

Step 2: Coding the Narrative

The clinician should transcribe eachnarrative with one clause on a line. With theaim of identifying the upper bounds of thechild’s abilities, the clinician should then se-lect the longest narrative (e.g., most num-ber of clauses) for scoring. McCabe & Peter-son34 found that the length of a narrativewas a very good rough indicator of its com-plexity. If two or more narratives have ap-proximately the same number of clauses,the speech-language pathologist shouldcode the narrative that has the most unin-terrupted text or makes the most sensewhen read. Also, the clinician should en-sure that the child has narrated an event inwhich s/he participated.

Once the narrative is selected, the clin-ician should assign each clause of the nar-rative with the appropriate Labovian ele-ment: orientation, action, evaluation,resolution, and coda. It is often the case

that one clause may be multiply coded. Wesuggest that speech-language pathologistsuse the following descriptions, adaptedfrom Labov9 and Peterson and McCabe,12

when coding clauses (see Appendix for ascored example).

1. Orientation: Orienting clauses providethe setting or context of the narrative,including information about partici-pants, time, location, general condi-tions (e.g., it was cold), ongoing events(we were dancing), and tangential in-formation about objects or features ofthe environment.

2. Action: Action clauses are clauses in thepast tense that refer to chronologicallyordered events that occur up to and in-cluding the high point of the narrative.

3. Evaluation: Evaluation statements orwords indicate the speaker’ s opinion orthoughts about what is being described.Evaluation demonstrates the meaningthat a happening had for the narrator.There are many kinds of evaluation.Some of these are obvious (e.g. “Thatwas good”), whereas others, such as neg-ative events, are quite subtle. As Labov10

pointed out, an infinite set of things didnot happen on any occasion. When anarrator uses negation to tell what didnot happen (e.g., “My dad didn’t keephis eyes on the road”), the narrator isidentifying deviations from what peopleexpected would happen, which is evalua-tive rather than informative per se. (Forexamples of evaluation, see Table 2.)

4. Resolution: Resolution, like action, con-sists of clauses in the past tense that referto the sequence of events that followsthe evaluative high point. These latterevents tell how things wound up; theyclear the stage and cap the experiences.

5. Coda: In Labov’s terms, a coda brings theimpact of a past experience up to thepresent time (e.g., “and I never rolledaround in a box again”). Many childrensimply say, “that’s it” to close their narra-tives. Children with language impair-ments may use this phrase as an easy wayout of a difficult communicative situa-

tion. Therefore, speech-language pathol-ogists should consider this as a sign of apossible struggle with narrative produc-tion, rather than a content-based sum-mary or conclusion of an anecdote.

Step 3: Scoring the Narrative

Scoring of the narrative should be cul-ture sensitive. Specifically, the literaturesuggests that scoring may be identical forsamples provided by ENA and AA children,whereas it may differ substantially for chil-dren from other cultures.

Scoring AA and ENA Narratives

One goal of the assessment is to deter-mine whether a child coming from a culturethat uses high-point narratives conformsto the cultural group in his narrativestyle.12,13,35,36 We suggest that the clinicianask a series of questions to identify the narra-tive structures the child is capable of (Fig.2). Identifying these narrative structures isrelatively straightforward, except for identi-fying the high point. The high point is the

emotional heart of the narrative or the cli-max and what is important to remember isthat it contains a concentration of evaluativestatements or words (e.g., see Appendix A).

AA and ENA children with typical lan-guage development produce narratives atexpected age levels as indicated in Table 1.The child should be observed for level ofengagement because relatively unevaluatedchronological narratives might be pro-duced by disengaged uninterested childrenof all ages. Given these expectations, a childwho is producing a leapfrogging style narra-tive at age 5 and older would be consideredatypical for his or her age group. This high-point analysis provides the clinician with aglobal determination of a child’s ability, andmay uncover subtle areas of weakness in theverbal abilities of children with a specificlanguage impairment. Miranda et al.37

showed that 8- and 9-year-olds with a spe-cific language impairment exhibited moreleapfrog types of narratives than did age-and language-matched groups of childrenwith typical language development.

If the clinician determines that a childhas problems producing an age-appropriatehigh-point narrative, a more detailed analy-


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TABLE 2. Evaluation Types Found in 4- to 9-Year Old White English-Speaking Children

Evaluation Type Example

Onomatopoeia “It went bam.”Stress “I screamed” with heightened tone of voiceElongation “We had to stay a long time.”Exclamation “Oh boy!”Repetition “I screamed and I screamed and . . . I screamed and I screamed”Compulsion words “We had to come in then.”Similies and metaphors “His eyes got as big as tomatoes.”Gratuitous terms “very,” “really,” “just”Attention-getters “I got to tell you the important part.”Words per se finally, accidentally, squished, scaredExaggeration and fantasy “I picked them [trees] up with my pinky.”Negatives “He didn’t shot me or nothin’.”Intentions, purposes, “I hoped Santa would bring me a new one.”

desires, or hopesHypotheses, guesses, “We didn’t think it would rain.”

inferences, predictionsResults of high-point action “I cut myself with the knife. Blood came running out.”Objective judgments “My brother liked my snowman much better than he liked my sister’s.”Subjective judgments “That was my favorite.”Facts “I caught the biggest fish.”Internal emotion states “She didn’t care about me.”Tangential information “She gave me ten dollars for going in there. Ten dollars is a lot of money when

evaluative of main nar- you’re little.”rative information

Causal explanations “He hit me in the head with a rock, so I threw one at him.”

sis may be useful in identifying areas to fo-cus on in intervention (see Bliss et al.,38 fordetails on a narrative assessment profile).

Scoring Narratives for Other Cultures

Although children from other culturesdo not necessarily produce a classic high-point narrative, the literature suggests thatLabov’s approach still has something to of-fer all the cultures examined to date.5

Specifically, all cultures studied to date in-clude all the major components named byLabov: orientation, action (both complicat-ing and resolving), evaluation, and codas.Thus, clinicians can use this aspect ofLabov’s approach to evaluate any child’snarrative competence (see Fig. 3).

In order to score narratives told by chil-dren from different cultures, clinicians who

are not from that culture might begin by hav-ing a full participant of the culture react tothe child’s narrative. Lay persons have beenfound to make good judgements about nar-rative structure and therefore can be used asresources for information concerning thechild’s culture.11 If the cultural informant be-lieve that narrative X is a good narrative, itprobably is a good narrative. If the culturalinformant believes that the narrative is defi-cient, the clinician my want to question thecultural informant about what problems ap-pear evident. If event sequencing is violatedwhen the culture values ordering, thatshould be a focus of intervention. In virtuallyany culture, excessive disfluencies and word-finding deficits signal impairment. If the cul-tural informant conveys information that canbe interpreted by the clinician as the child’sreduced topic maintenance or to lack of in-


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Figure 2. McCabe and Rollins Questions for scoring narrative structure: The ENA and AA mode.

formativeness, further details of the child’snarrative competence may be gathered.

In many cultures, children gain accessto narratives by co-constructing them withtheir parents. For this reason, we recom-

mend, if at all feasible, that the clinician ob-serve a parent–child interaction as part ofthe assessment process. It is important tonote what parts of the narrative the parentsdeem important to tell. Different cultures


230 Figure 3. Summary of narrative assessment procedure.

and different parents within any one cul-ture may stress different components of anarrative structure.

INTERVENTION

The narrative assessment outlined leadsdirectly to the formulation of appropriate in-tervention goals and procedures. Narrativedimensions that are most general should re-ceive focus before more specific areas. This isa form of triage, in which the clinician workson the areas most significant to the storyfirst. For example, narrative structure (highpoint) should receive focus before narrativeelements. In addition, actions and resolu-tions should be prioritized before codas. Theclinician can use questions to help a childstructure a narrative and make it more com-plete. If possible, parents should be enlistedas facilitators of narrative development. Pe-terson et al.39 found that children made im-provements in narrative skills when interven-tion focused on encouraging parents to (1)talk with their children about past experi-ences, (2) ask more open-ended and con-text-eliciting question, and (3) respond regu-

larly by using backchannel signals such asnods and nonverbal acknowledgment.

CONCLUSION

Labov drew attention to a particulargenre of narratives and laid out a way to ap-proach personal narratives that has provedvaluable in work with children from manycultures. The basic ingredients of personalnarratives about past events—orientation,action, evaluation, resolution and coda—have been found, and should be found, innarratives of children from all backgrounds.Although we need more information on theoverall shape of narratives in other cultures,Labov gave us the tools (e.g., identified theimportant constitutes of narratives) withwhich to assess narratives more than 25 yearsago. An understanding of the developmentof appropriate narrative skills within a givenculture can aid the speech-language pathol-ogist in establishing clinical goals to helpchildren achieve this important academicand social skill.


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1. Because narrative structure is influ-enced by cultural styles as well as lan-guage development, clinicians should:

(a) apply highpoint analyses in orderto avoid misdiagnosis.

(b) should not assign each clause ofthe narrative with the correspond-ing Labovian component.

(c) have a full participant of the cul-ture react to the child’s narrative.,

(d) observe the child using narrativeswhile s/he interacts with peers inthe classroom.

(e) use a story prompt about a birth-

day party since all cultures havebirthdays.

2. Labov focused on components of per-sonal narratives that he called:

(a) orientation, evaluation, complicat-ing action, resolution and coda.

(b) orientation, evaluation, chronology,high point, resolution, and coda.

(c) orientation, evaluation, leap frog,chronology, highpoint, and resolu-tion.

(d) orientation, evaluation, chronol-ogy, highpoint, and coda.

APPENDIX: WORKED EXAMPLE OF CODING A NARRATIVE OF A5-YEAR-OLD ENA CHILD

Step 2: Coding the narrative

Narrative Clauses Clause number Coding Labovian Element

E: Have you ever gotten jabbed with anything?

L: Uh huh. I got jabbed with a bee. 1 ACTION

E: By a bee. Oh, tell me about it.

L: See, I got jabbed on my foot. 2 ACTION-ORIENTATION

I was barefooted. 3 ACTION

I screamed and I screamed 4 ACTION-EVALUATION

and I cried and I cried. 5 ACTION-EVALUATION

I screamed and I screamed. 6 ACTION-EVALUATION

Until my next door neighbor came out 7 RESOLUTION

and my Dad came out 8 RESOLUTION

and my brother came out. 9 RESOLUTION

And, they all carried me into the house 10 RESOLUTION

but after that happened 11

I got to sleep overnight with my neighbor. 12 RESOLUTION

Step 3: Scoring the narrative

Questions Answer Evidence from clause numbers

Are there two past tense events? Yes 1 & 3

Are there more than two past tense events? Yes 4, 5, & 6

In the real world is there a logical or casualsequence to events? Yes

Does the narrator’s order of events mirror sequencein which events occurred? Yes

Is there a High Point? Yes 4, 5, & 6

Is there a resolution? Yes 7, 8, 9, 10, & 12

ARTICLE FIVE

SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

(e) orientation, evaluation complicat-ing action, highpoint, resolutionand coda.

3. Eliciting personal event narratives isthe most appropriate narrative genrefor the assessment for young pre-school and early elementary childrenbecause:(a) they occur naturally when children

converse with their parents andpeers.

(b) they are an important form ofclassroom discourse

(c) young children are able to struc-ture their oral personal narrativesin a more sophisticated way thanscripts or fictional stories.

(d) they have a definite developmentalprogression.

(e) all of the above.


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culturally sensitive assessment of narrative skills in children

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