Applying Vygotskian DevelopmentalTheory to Language Intervention

Phyllis SchneiderUniversity of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Ruth V. WatkinsUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL

deally, each practicing speech-languagepathologist works within a theory of humanlearning and development. The clinician's

theory serves as a guide for making moment-to-momentdecisions in clinical interactions, as well as in preplanningintervention and selecting therapy materials. In most cases,these personal theories will be influenced by formaltheories of learning and development, particularly whenworking with children with language impairments.

As pointed out by van Kleeck and Richardson (1986, inpress), social interactionist views of development areparticularly adaptable to clinical intervention. After all,clinicians are attempting to influence the learning anddevelopment of child clients. As language interventionists,our practice rests on at least an implicit belief that socialinteraction provides the context for and has the potential toeffect developmental change.

The goal of the present article is to present a particularsocial-interactionist view of development and to discusshow this view can guide language intervention practice. We

ABSTRACT: The developmental theory of L.S. Vygotsky isone that is particularly well suited to clinical application.Vygotsky viewed social interaction as essential for thedevelopment of individual functioning. His theory is thusespecially relevant to language interventth, in Whichclinicians attempt to influence children's developmentthrough interaction. In this article, we present keynotions from Vygotsky's developmental theory andapplications of this theory to assessment. We thendiscuss applications to language intervention in clinical,settings using examples from intervention with a childwho has language impairments.

KEY WORDS: dynamic assessment, dynamic intervention,Vygotsky, clinical interaction, scaffolding

will present an extended example of how the approach canbe applied, focusing on the process of planning andcarrying out intervention based on the approach.

A SOCIAL-INTERACTIONIST VIEW OFDEVELOPMENT

Theoretical Foundation

There is a developmental theory that views socialinteraction with others as essential for the development ofindependent cognitive and linguistic functioning-the theoryof Vygotsky (1978, 1987). Vygotsky viewed the child asdeveloping and functioning within a social context. ForVygotsky, social interaction is essential for development,not only as a source of stimulation and feedback, but asthe very means by which individual psychological function-ing comes to be. Psychological functions such as problem-solving and voluntary memory are carried out initiallybetween the child and adults or more capable peers;eventually, the child internalizes the process that wascarried out jointly, and is then able to carry out thefunction individually.

Vygotsky proposed a way by which responsibility forpsychological functioning is gradually transferred from theadult to the child. Adults structure activities so that thechild's role is within the child's zone of proximal develop-ment (ZPD), described as "the difference between a child'sactual developmental level as determined by independentproblem solving and the level of potential development asdetermined through problem solving under adult guidanceor in collaboration with more capable peers" (1978, p. 86).Thus, children's performance under adult guidance is at ahigher level than they are capable of independently.Eventually, through participating in such interaction,children become capable of carrying out similar activities

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on their own, because the types of assistance provided bythe adult in joint problem solving have been internalized bythe child.

Inside the Zone of Proximal Development

Wertsch (1984) developed the notion of the ZPD,focusing on the aspects of interaction that are crucialfor later independent functioning. He proposed threetheoretical constructs that can help us understand thezone. The central construct in his formulation is thenotion of situation definition, or "the way in which asetting or context is represented" by participants (p. 8).An adult and child may in many cases not have thesame definition of a situation at first; for example, achild may view a set of blocks as objects to be thrownor used for anything he or she likes, whereas the adultviews them as building materials. The adult and childmust come to some agreement on how to define thesituation before they can achieve intersubjectivity,Wertsch's second construct.

According to Rommetveit (1979), although inter-subjectivity between two adults is achieved throughreciprocal attempts at understanding the perspective of theother and through a process of "negotiating" sharedmeanings, for adult-child dyads, the process is lessreciprocal. The child is not able to take the adult's perspec-tive, but may nevertheless accept the adult's situationdefinition, at least after negotiation. It is the adult whomust attempt to understand the child's situation definitionand negotiate from there a definition the child will acceptand that will bring the child closer to the adult's defini-tion. At the prelinguistic level, the child's attention is whatmust primarily be negotiated for (Rommetveit, 1979); at alater age, negotiations can involve the nature of the activityand the ways to operate within it.

The adult carries out these negotiations through whatWertsch (1984) terms semiotic mediation, similar to whatothers have called scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross,1976), assisted performance (Tharp, Gallimore, & Calkins,1984), or controlled complexity (McNamee, 1979). Al-though based on somewhat different metaphors, they are allintended to describe the ways adults adapt their assistanceto help children participate in activities, and thus promotetheir children's cognitive, social, and/or linguistic develop-ment. Wertsch's term emphasizes mediation throughlanguage; we would point out that other forms of mediation(e.g., demonstration, gesturing, etc.) may also be helpful.

Application to Studies of Typical Development

Recent research by neo-Vygotskians has examined thenature of assistance provided by adults during the course ofan activity, either a problem-solving task (e.g., Saxe,Gearhart, & Guberman, 1984; Wertsch, 1985; Wertsch,McNamee, McLane, & Budwig, 1980) or a task based oneveryday activities (Renshaw & Gardner, 1990). Parentshave been observed to adjust their assistance to the needsof the child at a particular point in the activity, retaining

responsibility when the child is less successful and relin-quishing it when the child is doing well.

Detailed descriptions of interactions, termed microgeneticanalyses (Wertsch & Stone, 1978), have been employed tospecify how adults adjust their assistance from moment tomoment in an interaction. Related changes in a child'sassumption of responsibility for aspects of the activity havealso been described (Wertsch, McNamee, McLane, &Budwig, 1980).

Within an interaction, when the child has completed asubstep successfully, the adult provides what Wertsch andSchneider (1981) termed abbreviated assistance, whichprovides minimal direction and leaves maximal responsibil-ity to the child for that portion of the activity (e.g., "Whatdo we need next?"). When such assistance is not re-sponded to appropriately by the child, the adult typicallyswitches to unabbreviated help, which provides morespecific direction (e.g., "Do you think the small blockwould go on top of that big one?", or demonstration); theadult is thereby assuming a greater share of the responsibil-ity for the overall activity (Saxe, Gearhart, & Guberman,1984; Wertsch & Schneider, 1981).

Note that abbreviated assistance is neither better norworse than unabbreviated assistance; it is the match oflevel of assistance, the child's ability, and the dyad's goalsthat makes assistance helpful or unhelpful. The adult usesthe child's responses as cues to the child's task competenceat a given moment in the activity.

Through adult assistance, children gradually learn how tocomplete activities independently by learning the stepsnecessary to carry them out and by taking responsibility forcarrying out the steps (Wertsch, 1978). However, they arenot only learning how to complete particular activities, theyare also learning the process of identifying the stepsinvolved in an activity.

Adults' assistance of children's performance must beanalyzed with regard to the goals of the participants for theactivity. The goal is simply what the participants are tryingto accomplish in an activity. The adult's goal for anactivity may differ from the child's goal-for example, anadult may consider the goal for a coloring book to bemaking the pictures look as realistic as possible as well asteaching colors and shapes, whereas the child may have thegoal of trying out every crayon in turn. The participants'goal(s) will direct the nature of the assistance and therelative responsibility of child and adult (Renshaw &Gardner, 1990; Wertsch, Minick, & Arns, 1984). Part of theadult's task is to help the child to move toward a moreadult-like goal over time.

The adult's role in the ZPD is not typically that ofteacher in the way we usually think of this role, but ratheras a joint participant in everyday activities. In addition, inother cultures, the ways adults and children divide respon-sibility in joint activities and the goals they have for theactivities may be quite different from the patterns describedin observations of Western middle-class adults and children(Wertsch, Minick, & Arns, 1984). However, the types ofassistance used by adults in everyday interaction in ourown culture can be adapted as deliberate remediation toolsfor intervention with children from the same culture.

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Clinical Applications: Dynamic Approaches

Although the majority of neo-Vygotskian research hasfocused on parent-child interaction, Vygotsky originallyintroduced his notion of the ZPD as a means of assessingchildren's potential for learning, as an alternative to thestatic measures of IQ and mental age. He suggested thatdetermining a child's ZPD would provide guidance inhelping a child attain the next higher level of functioning.He was especially interested in applying the notion tochildren with developmental delays.

The ZPD notion has been incorporated into a number ofdynamic assessment instruments, both in the USSR(Wozniak, 1975) and in the West (Brown & Ferrara, 1985;Campione & Brown, 1987; Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman,Egozi, & Shagar-Segev, 1991; Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman,& Miller, 1980; Lidz, 1991). The term dynamic wasintroduced to contrast the approach to standard assessmenttechniques, which assess a child's current level of function-ing rather than their proximal development-the productrather than the process of learning (Lidz, 1991). Lidzdiscussed several ways in which adults mediate an experi-ence for a child in a dynamic interaction: They mediatemeaning to help the learner discriminate between what isand is not important; they mediate regulation to help thelearner move from other- to self-regulation; they mediategoal seeking, setting, and planning; and they mediate thechallenge of the activity, so that the learner can reachbeyond his or her current level of functioning withoutbeing overwhelmed.

To date, most of the work in dynamic assessment hasfocused on a test-intervene-retest format (also known astest-train-retest and test-teach-retest). In the test phase, astatic measure, such as a standardized intelligence orachievement test, is administered in order to determine achild's independent level of functioning. In the intervenephase, the examiner interacts with the child using materialsthat tap the same skills as the static measure. The examineruses a predetermined hierarchy of cues to assist the child,either moving systematically from least to most helpful(e.g., Campione & Brown, 1987), or moving flexibly inrelation to the child's performance at a particular point inthe interaction (e.g., Feuerstein, 1980). Finally, the child isretested using the same or a similar static measure.

The degree to which a child changes from test to retestis termed the child's modifiability. Feuerstein (1980) hasargued against using a test phase in his procedures on thegrounds that if a child performs poorly on a pretest, it willbe difficult to engage the child in the task in the interven-tion phase. Without a pretest, determination of modifiabilityis based on an analysis of change (in, e.g., the child'sstrategy use) during and after intervention.

Dynamic Assessment of Language

More recently, the dynamic approach has been applied tolanguage assessment. Olswang and her colleagues (Olswang& Bain, 1991; Olswang, Bain, & Johnson, 1992; Olswang,Bain, Rosendahl, Oblak, & Smith, 1986) developed a

hierarchy of cues for use with children at the early stagesof language development. The cues are designed to providedifferent amounts of support for children's production oflexical items. Olswang et al. (1986) presented data fromtwo children with delayed language development and foundthat the children differed in their responsiveness to adultcues, and that the more responsive child also learned morewords (both treated and control words) during the treatmentperiod. The authors concluded that the less responsive childwas probably a better candidate for therapy because heexhibited change on treated words to a greater extent thancontrol words; changes in the child who was more respon-sive were probably due to maturation rather than treatment.Thus, dynamic assessment could be used to indicatechildren who are in the process of developing a skill (i.e.,those who need low levels of support to perform at ahigher level) and those who will need treatment to helpthem develop the skill (those who need greater levels ofsupport in order to perform at a higher level). It could alsoreveal those who did not benefit from any level of adultsupport. Olswang et al. (1986) suggested that such childrenmay not be ready for treatment.

Olswang, Bain, and Johnson (1992) extended thehierarchy of dynamic assessment to five cue levels for usein eliciting two-word utterances. The hierarchy ranges fromleast supportive (General Statement calling attention to anobject-"Oh, look at this") to most supportive (DirectModel + Elicitation Statement-"Tell me, dog walk", andShaping-repetition of single term produced by the childand model plus elicitation of the other target term). Theauthors presented data from two children once again whodiffered in responsiveness to adult cues.

Wade and Haynes (1989) compared dynamic interaction intwo contexts: child-directed and adult-directed. They lookedat children with and without language impairments whosemean length of utterance was between 1.04 and 1.67. Thedynamic assessment cues consisted of elicitation questionsand statements adapted from Olswang et al. (1986). Theyfound that children with language impairments respondedmore frequently and more often appropriately in the adult-directed interaction, whereas the children without impair-ments responded less often in the adult-directed conditionand did not differ in the number of appropriate responses inthe two conditions. The authors concluded that children withlanguage impairments may benefit more from dynamicinteractions when they are directed by the clinician.

The dynamic assessment approach has also been appliedto bilingual and bicultural assessment issues. Pefia, Quinn,and Iglesias (1992) used a dynamic approach to assessmentwith young children (test-teach-retest format involvinglexical items). They found that children who were "possiblylanguage disordered" improved less after the teach phaseand were rated lower on a "modifiability indicator" thananother group of children who had equally low pretestscores but had not been identified as possibly having alanguage disorder. The authors claimed that the approachallows one to distinguish between children with languageimpairments and children who have had different interac-tional experiences: If a child can benefit from dynamicinteraction in a short time, then the child does not have a

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language impairment; children who do not benefit in ashort time are in need of intervention.

Gutierrez-Clellen and Quinn (1993) extended this notionto interaction involving narratives. They suggested thatdynamic interaction could be used to familiarize childrenfrom another culture (and possibly different narrativetraditions) with storytelling conventions and organization. Achild who is "highly modifiable" in a narrative dynamicassessment would be likely to adapt relatively easily tonarrative tasks; previous poor narrative performance wouldlikely have been caused by insufficient experience withdominant-culture narratives. Children who demonstrate lowmodifiability would be candidates for intervention.

The Purpose of Dynamic Assessment

Different authors have expressed different notions of thegoal driving the dynamic approach. Several authors haveproposed that the primary goal is to determine a child'smodifiability (Campione & Brown, 1987; Olswang et al.1986; Pefia et al., 1992)-the degree to which a child islikely to benefit from a program of intervention. Modifi-ability includes the amount of assistance needed andtransfer to other tasks or to independent task performance(Pefia et al.. 1992).

According to Olswang et al. (1986), a child's modifiabil-ity as determined by dynamic assessment may lead todecisions concerning whether a child is a suitable candidatefor intervention at a particular point in time. Olswang et al.(1992) refer to this approach as quantitative. The focus inthe quantitative approach is typically a predeterminedcontext, such as single-word elicitation, in which the childwill be assessed. Assessment protocols are then drawn upwith a hierarchy of cues to assess children in that context.

Another approach to dynamic assessment, which Olswanget al. (1992) call the qualitative approach, is to identify theproximal or next level the child will reach-that is, theskills a child is currently developing but cannot yetevidence independently (Minick, 1987). The goal is todetermine in which contexts and with what types ofassistance a child can perform an activity. A child mightnot show much benefit from adult assistance in a particularcontext. However, this does not necessarily mean that thechild is not modifiable in a general sense-rather, itsuggests that the task was not in the zone of the child'sproximal development and thus the child may not havebeen modifiable for this particular skill.'

Minick (1987) stated that although the modifiabilityapproach has resulted in useful work, the second view ofdynamic assessment goals is more consistent with

In fact, the child described as less modifiable by Olswang et al. did notuse words expressively in the static assessment, whereas the other child,who did appear modifiable, used 12 words during the static assessmentphase of the study Thus, these two children were different in theirindependent level of functioning and would be expected to benefit frominteraction in different activities or to different extents in the same activity.The less modifiable child would be a candidate for intervention according toOlswang et al Once that decision is made, it would be helpful for planningintervention to figure out in what ways and for what tasks the child couldbe helped

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Vygotsky's perspective. The size of the ZPD, as measuredby the amount of assistance a child needs to accomplish atask or the efficiency with which the child accomplishes it,is not the crucial aspect to determine (Minick, 1987:Winegar, 1988). Rather, the question to ask is, "For whichskills and at which levels is adult assistance helpful?"

Although it may be the case that some children turn outto be more modifiable than others for particular skills andskill levels, the focus for Vygotsky and many Vygotskians(Rogoff. 1990; Schneider, Gallimore, & Hyland, 1991;Tharp & Gallimore, 1988) has been how and in whatcontexts a child's performance can be assisted. Theassumption is that most children are modifiable (i.e., arecapable of further development with assistance) if theappropriate skill area, type of assistance, and professionalcan be identified. A child does not have a ZPD-it is not afeature of the child. Rather, a zone is created wheneverchildren interact with more capable others in particularactivities. Thus, the quantitative and qualitative aspects ofthe zone will vary depending on the nature of the activity,the adult's contribution. and the child's independent levelof functioning. It is also important to remember that achild's modifiability for (readiness to learn) a particularskill area can itself change with practice or instruction(Campione & Brown, 1987).

When designing dynamic assessment or intervention,then, it is crucial to consider the child's independentperformance level when determining where to begin. If achild does not appear to benefit from assistance, it isnecessary to consider whether a lower skill level might becloser to the child's ZPD. Much of the work in dynamicassessment to date has focused on the quantitative ap-proach-measuring children's modifiability. We take aqualitative approach, focusing on what goes on in dynamicinteraction and how the adult adjusts assistance to mediatefor the child in particular points in the interaction.

The Dynamic Approach to Intervention

The notion of the ZPD lends itself equally well to whatwe could call a dynamic intervention approach to languageimpairments. Van Kleeck and Richardson (1986) discussedways a clinician might respond to errors in intervention interms of the theory by which the clinician is guided. Theauthors concluded that a social interactional approach suchas Vygotsky's would provide excellent guidance in how todeal with children's errors, and beyond that, to helpchildren to move toward better independent performance.The clinician can use the child's errors to guide decisionsconcerning the level of assistance that will be most helpfulat a particular point in interaction.

In a sense, dynamic approaches to assessment andintervention blur the distinction between the two. Dynamicassessment involves mediation by the adult in order todetermine the child's assisted level of performance;dynamic intervention requires constant assessment of theeffect of adult cues on the child's performance in order tokeep the adult's assistance at the appropriate level. Thegoal of dynamic assessment is to determine the skills with

April 1996

which the child is currently ready to be helped. In dynamicintervention. the goal is to assist the child to develop thoseskills by internalizing the process carried out between theadult and the child in interaction.

By combining Vygotsky's original notion of the ZPDwith what has been learned from parent-child interac-tions, we can devise a means of applying Vygotskiandevelopmental theory to language intervention. We willfocus on the process of planning and carrying out sucha Vygotskian intervention. We will discuss the processin general and present examples from specific interven-tion sessions in which we attempted to use this process.Our aim is to highlight the process of developing andimplementing language facilitation as driven byVygotsky's theory, rather than to document the outcomeof a particular treatment strategy.

A VYGOTSKIAN APPROACH TO PLANNINGMEDIATION IN THE CLINIC

This case study describes the application of Vygotskianprinciples in several individual language interventionsessions with an adolescent with language impairments. Theintervention focused on facilitating the client's narrativeskills through the clinician's mediation of various story-telling tasks. As in planning any intervention, a preliminarystep to planning and conducting actual therapy sessions wasto consider the client's communication strengths andweaknesses, and to formulate appropriate general andspecific intervention goals from the client's profile.

We have found that Vygotskian mediation in the clinicrequires some effort and reflection to implement, despite itsubiquity in parent-child interaction and surface-levelappearance of being a simple and natural strategy. Thoughthe first impression of many clinicians is often, "That'swhat I always do," after analysis of our own initialattempts, we found that there is a tendency to retainresponsibility and to keep the child's role at a low level, atwhich he or she attains consistent success. We hope that byclosely examining the process of planning and conducting adynamic intervention, the unique properties of this form ofintervention will become apparent.

Much of the work using a dynamic approach tolanguage has involved children at prelinguistic or earlylinguistic stages of language development. Lidz (1991)argued that dynamic interaction is most effective withchildren who have some metacognitive abilities, and arethus over 3 years of age. Before this age, children willnot have the metacognitive skills that would allow themto eventually take over responsibility for an activity.Working with older children has the advantage ofpermitting the adult to provide assistance when thechild provides an incorrect or partially correct verbalresponse. Such attention to errors provides an opportu-nity to bring the child's situation definition closer tothat of the adult (Wertsch, 1984). The child will becapable of developing a metacognitive strategy based oninternalization of the adult's mediation.

Description of Client

The subject of this case study was "Bill," a 13-year-oldmale enrolled in a regular sixth-grade educational place-ment. Bill displayed moderate difficulties with expressiveand receptive language as the result of a cerebrovascularaccident (CVA) that occurred approximately 15 monthsbefore the beginning of the intervention activities describedhere. In the period between the CVA and the interventiondescribed, Bill was enrolled in month of diagnostictherapy at a rehabilitation center, and approximately yearof individual language intervention, attending two 30-minutesessions per week. That intervention emphasized improvingBill's functional language skills (e.g., recalling months ofthe year, understanding math vocabulary, oral and writtennarrative skills) through relatively traditional therapymethods (e.g.. drilling on the months of the year).

Progress was noted in certain areas following the year oflanguage intervention. For example, Bill improved inspecific areas of language knowledge (e.g., naming monthsof the year in order). However, other tasks continued to beproblematic, such as organizing academic material, usingacademic study skills, and completing writing activities.Bill's language skills at the time of the study were docu-mented through both formal assessment procedures andinformal narrative analysis, as described in the followingsections.

Formal assessment data. Several standardized measuresof Bill's language skills were collected at the beginning ofthis case study. These measures included the ClinicalEvaluation of Language Fundamentals-Revised (CELF-R;Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 1987), the Test of LanguageDevelopment-2 Intermediate (TOLD-2 I; Hammill &Newcomer, 1988), and the Peabody Picture VocabularyTest-Revised (PPVT-R; Dunn & Dunn, 1981). Table Isummarizes Bill's performance on these measures. Overall,formal measures suggested that semantic skills were arelative strength for Bill, whereas grammatical abilitieswere more problematic. Bill's receptive language appearedto exceed his expressive skills.

Specific standardized measures of Bill's reading abilityand academic achievement were not collected at the time of

Table 1. Bill's standardized language assessment results.

Standardized test Standard score Percentile rank

Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-RevisedReceptive Language score 72 3Expressive Language score 64 1Total Language score 66 1

Test of Language Development-IntermediateSemantics Quotient 88Syntax Quotient 75Spoken Language Quotient 82

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised 102 55

Note. All scores and quotients reported have a mean of 100 and astandard deviation of 15.

Schneider * Watkins 161

the study. However, informal reports from Bill's classroomteacher and caregiver indicated that Bill was experiencingdifficulty in mastering academic material and maintainingthe pace of his school peers. In the context of this study, itwas observed that Bill had solid fundamental literacy skillsand was able to read and comprehend relatively simplematerial.

Baseline narrative measures. Several informal samplesof Bill's narrative abilities were collected at the onset ofthe case study. These baseline samples were used to (a)obtain information concerning Bill's strengths and weak-nesses in narrative production and (b) identify potentialintervention targets. A number of different oral narrativetypes were elicited, including personal experience stories,stories generated from a brief story stem or starter, andstory retelling.

Three narrative samples, collected before the beginningof the intervention, are presented in the Appendix. The firstsample is a personal experience story, the second is a storygenerated from a starter, and the third is a retold story(refer to the Appendix for a summary of each narrativetask). Despite obvious differences in the nature andcharacter of these narrative tasks, informal analysis ofBill's narratives revealed several consistent problem areas.First, Bill often failed to include key story elements in hisnarratives (i.e., characters, setting, action, resolution). Forexample, Bill began his personal experience narrative (seeExample 1) a story concerning a recent trip to the circus,with the sentence "We had to find a parking space." Billdid not provide important information such as who attendedthe circus or where the circus was held. In retelling a storythat was told to him (see Example 3). Bill omitted manykey points, including the initiating event of a blizzard andthe protagonists' attempts to survive it.

Two additional problems evident in Bill's baselinenarratives were his difficulty in structuring a story and inpresenting stories in an appropriate and interpretablesequence. These problems were manifest in several ways inBill's narratives. For example, Bill frequently appeared tobe uncertain about what to include in his stories, and oftenrelied on the clinician to provide prompts and assistancefor continuing.

In the story Bill generated from a starter (see Example2), Bill's comments suggest that he is not sure what shouldcome next in the story (e.g., "My mind went blank" and "Ithink I don't have any more sentences to put together"),and continues with the story only after the clinicianprovides a recap of the story he has told thus far.2 Bill'spersonal experience narrative (see Example 1) also suggestssome specific difficulties with describing events in anappropriate manner. Specifically, Bill's discussion of theparking garage seems out of place and is difficult tointerpret without additional information.

2 Given the etiology of Bill's problems, it is possible that difficulties innarration may be related to memory skills rather than to a particular lack ofknowledge of story structure. Even i memory is involved, however, Bill'sability to produce narratives should be enhanced by strengthening hisknowledge of key story elements and structure.

Planning the Intervention

Given this profile, the general goal for the interventiondescribed here was to improve Bill's oral narrative abilities.An intervention approach was needed that would assist Billin overcoming the particular difficulties identified in hisbaseline narratives, that is, an approach that highlighted theinclusion of key story elements and gave Bill a frameworkfrom which stories could be generated with greater inde-pendence. To address these areas, increasing Bill's abilityto use story grammar elements in telling a story with acomplete episode was established as the specific goal ofour intervention. Story grammars (Stein & Glenn, 1979)were originally proposed to represent what children knowabout story structures. They have been widely used inresearch on children's narratives as well as in clinicalanalyses.

Although there is disagreement as to the adequacy anduniversality of story grammar as a model of story produc-tion and comprehension (e.g., Wilensky, 1983), storiesfitting the story grammar format are generally accepted byadults and children as good stories (Stein & Policastro,1984). Thus, we felt that if Bill could learn to generatestories that fit the story grammar format, he would betelling better stories than he was previously, and the basicstory grammar framework could provide a foundation forfurther development and expansion of Bill's narrativeabilities. An outline of Stein and Glenn's story grammarmodel is presented in Table 2.

We used two forms of mediation in the intervention: (a)the verbal mediation moves of the clinician, which areclinician utterances that mediate between the child and thegoal; and (b) written mediation in the form of a cue cardto which Bill could refer. The cue card contained a list ofstory grammar units (which we called "important parts of astory that all complete stories should have") with a briefexplanation of each, such as, "Starting Event-whathappens to begin the story." The major contents of this cuecard are displayed in Table 2.

In an initial therapy session, the clinician and child hadreviewed these important story units and discussed whatthey were and why they were important. At the beginningof the first session to be discussed here, the summarized

Table 2. Story Grammar:tions.

Key elements and cue card adapta-

Story Grammar elements" Cue card

Setting Setting: Characters and placesInitiating event Starting event: Action/problem that

starts storyInternal response Thoughts and feelings: Characters'

thoughts and plansAttempt Attempts: Characters' actionsConsequence Results: Results of actionsReaction Reaction. Outcomes and endings

As proposed by Stein and Glenn (1979).

162 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS * Vol. 27 April 1996

story units on the cue card were reviewed. The goal for thesession was explained: Bill was to retell stories read to himby the clinician, using the story units to guide him andreferring to the cue card as necessary. In order to reducememory load, Bill also had a copy of the story to which hecould refer as well.

The next step in planning our mediation was to determinewhat would constitute different levels of assistance, from ahigh level, which would leave maximum responsibility to thechild, to a low level, which would give the child minimalresponsibility for the task. Given the nature of our task,there appeared to be three distinct levels of responsibilityBill could exhibit at any point: He could demonstrate highindividual responsibility by independently consulting his cuecard for story grammar information; he could rely on theclinician to remind him to look at the card or to providestory grammar information, while he retained responsibilityfor providing story details; or he could require help with therecall even of the story details. Thus, we planned threecorresponding levels of clinician assistance:

1. High: Mediation moves that require the child toremember to look at the card, or to provide the nextimportant story part without referring to the cue card,if possible. With high moves, responsibility for thetask would rest primarily with Bill. Thus, high movesare analogous to Wertsch and Schneider's abbreviateddirectives (1981) mentioned previously. An exampleof a high mediation move would be: "What comesfirst (or next) in the story?" In order to respondcorrectly to this move, the child would need to bothmention the story unit that should come nextaccording to the cue card and provide the story lineor lines that constituted that unit from the story to beretold. For example, in responding to the clinician'shigh mediation move of "What comes first in thestory?" a correct response from Bill would be"setting-there was a little boy riding a bike."

2. Mid: Mediation moves in which the clinicianassumes some of the responsibility for linking thecue card to the story or for referring the child to thecue card. A mid-level move such as, "And in thisstory, what was the setting?" links the informationon the cue card with the task of telling the story. Ifthe child had not looked at the cue card, an appro-priate mid-level move would be, "How could youfind out what comes next in the story?" or "Don'tforget about your card."

3. Low: Mediation moves that do not refer to the cuecard or to the task of using important story units totell the story. For example, "Who was in the story?""How did he feel about that?" or "What did he dothen?" would constitute low-level moves because thechild would not have to consider the overall goal atall to respond to them correctly, and thus are a typeof "unabbreviated" prompt (Wertsch & Schneider,1981).

The clinician's ongoing decisions concerning the level ofmediation move appropriate at any point in the interaction

depended on several factors. The basic principle was tostay at as high a level as possible-in other words, to giveas much responsibility at any time to the child as long ashe was successful. After a correct response, the clinicianwas to go up to a higher level or stay up if her moveswere already high. After an error or partially correctresponse, she might go down to a lower level, or she mightdecide to stay at a higher level if she believed it would besufficient at that point.

In order to implement this strategy. it was necessary tospecify what would constitute an error, a correct response,and a partially correct response on the child's part. If inresponse to a high mediation move such as "What comesnext in the story?" Bill consulted his cue card, read thenext unit, but did nothing with the information, it would beconsidered partially correct, and the clinician would mostlikely go down a level. If he responded incorrectly, shewould also go to a lower level move. If he provided thenext story part, but did not identify it with a story unit,this would also be considered only partially correct. Notethat with a different goal, such as merely telling a story,such a move would be considered correct. However, withthe goal for this intervention, namely, getting Bill to usestory units to structure his story retelling, it must beconsidered only partially correct.

A second factor in the clinician's decision regarding theappropriate level of prompting was the importance of anerror. If a particular error was trivial and not related to theoverall goal of telling a good story using story units, thenthe clinician could move down to a low move rather thantry to help the child function more independently. Anexample of a trivial error would be forgetting a character'sname or the story's location (see Example 2, line (20) foran example). If the error seemed more central to thestorytelling process, then the clinician was to stay at a highor mid level if possible to try and help the child workthrough the error. Miscellaneous factors, such as the child'slevel of frustration with and attention to the task, were alsoto be considered by the clinician in deciding on theappropriate level of move to be used.

Thus, the clinician was to mediate Bill's attempts to tellor retell stories by adjusting her mediation moves to hislevel of performance. High moves would be those thatleave a high level of responsibility for the overall task toBill; in order to respond correctly, he would need toconsider both the story units and the story itself. Lowmoves would be those that leave little responsibility for theoverall task to the child; in order to respond correctly, hewould only need to provide some bit of information aboutthe story, without considering the overall task of using thestory units. Mid-level moves would be between these twoextremes-they would be attempts by the clinician to linkthe two parts of the goal-the story units with the storypart that constitutes that unit.

In some cases, the clinician's mid-level move wouldrelate the child's mention of a story unit to the story, suchas, "So, in this story ....... "In others, it would attempt toconnect a story fragment provided by the child with storyunits ("And what part of the story was that?"). At eachlevel, there may be a variety of types of mediation moves

Schneider * Watkins 163

depending on the nature of the child's responses. In thisarticle, we will focus on level of mediation rather than onspecific prompt type.

Other utterances by the clinician, such as repetitions ofthe child's utterance or feedback to his mediation moves,differed from the mediation moves described above in thatthey were not intended to evoke an immediate response bythe child. They undoubtedly serve important functions oftheir own. For example, what we have labelled feedbackincludes utterances that attempt to show Bill what might beincorrect about his move, or to summarize what he hasdone in terms of the overall goal. Thus, they no doubtserve an important role in the mediation process. Forillustration purposes, however, we will focus on the use ofmoves that can be described in terms of levels of assistanceas we have defined them above.

We will now present a microgenetic analysis of theinteraction to demonstrate how we conducted a Vygotskian-oriented intervention session. Our focus will be on themoves made by the clinician and on how she adjusted herlevels of assistance in response to the child's performance.(We will return to the planning of the intervention in moredetail in the Discussion section.)

In the examples, the transcript and coding conventionsare those used by Systematic Analysis of LanguageTranscripts (SALT; Miller & Chapman, 1986). C stands forthe clinician and B for Bill. The codes are designed tohighlight the analysis; no quantitative analysis was carriedout or intended. The important aspect of level of mediationmove is not how many moves of each type occurred, butrather in what context each type of move was used. Themeanings of the codes are as follows:

[HIGH], [MID], [LOW]: "Level" of the clinician'smediation move

[FEEDBACK]: Feedback to child's contribution

[REP]: repetition (with or without recasting) by theclinician of the child's utterance

[CORRECT]: child contribution that was "correct" withregard to clinician's request and the overall goals forthe session

[PARTIAL]: child contribution that was partially correctwith regard to the clinician's request or the overallgoals for session (though it may be fully correct initself, without regard to goal)

[ERROR]: incorrect contribution by the child

Examples are taken from two consecutive interventionsessions using the goal and the planned moves outlinedabove. They do not constitute a complete story retelling;rather, examples were chosen to illustrate particular points.Examples are, however, ordered chronologically. In the firstof the two interactions, the clinician and child reviewed thestory units, outlined the overall goal, and practiced with astory that was labelled with each story unit. Then, theclinician read a new story to the child, repeated the goal,and began the retelling interaction. The first example comesfrom a point after the beginning of this interaction.

Example 1. Key point: Shifting mediation moves toelicit a complete response

1. C OK, so then what comes next in the story[HIGH]?

2. B [looks at cue card) Starting events [PARTIAL].

3. B Actions or events that start the story [PAR-TIAL].

4. C OK, and in this story [MID]?

5. B He found a bone and buried it in the backyard[CORRECT].

6. C Good [FEEDBACK].

The clinician begins with a mediation move at a highlevel, giving the child responsibility for the overall task.Bill responds in (2)-(3) by looking at his cue card andreading the story unit that comes next. He does not,however, go on to relate the unit to the story, making it apartially correct response. In (4), the clinician shifts to amid-level move that links Bill's contribution to the story tobe told. This move takes responsibility for linking the goalwith the retelling task, while simultaneously modelling sucha linking for the child. Bill responds in (5) with therequested story information, which is a correct response tothe clinician's mid-level move.

Example 2. Key point: Shifting mediation moves toclarify story unit definitions (from the retell of adifferent story, second session)

1. C How should you start the story [HIGH]?

2. B There was a little boy riding a bike [PARTIAL].

3. C What part of the story was that [MID]?

4. B Um, setting, starting event [PARTIAL].

5. C Okay, you told me the setting [FEEDBACK].

6. C Do you remember what the setting was [MID]?

7. B There was a boy riding a bike [PARTIAL].

8. C (That would be) I think that would not be thesetting [FEEDBACK].

9. C What is a setting supposed to be [MID]?

10. B (looks at cue card} Place of story, people in thestory [CORRECT].

11. C Right [FEEDBACK].

12. B A little boy and a dog PARTIAL].

13. C But the dog doesn't start at the beginning of thestory [FEEDBACK].

14. C Who was the person at the beginning of thestory [LOW]?

15. B The kid [CORRECT].

16. C Right [FEEDBACK].

17. C And it did also tell you something else aboutsetting [MID].

18. C

19. B

20. C

You may have forgotten that part.

Mmhm.

I said there was a little boy who lived in a bigcity [LOW].

21. B Okay.

164 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS Vol. 27 April 1996

Once again, the clinician starts with a high-level media-tion move for a new story retelling. Bill again respondswith a partially correct answer, but this time he included thestory part and omitted mention of the story unit that itconstituted. Again, this would be considered correct if thegoal were merely to get Bill to retell stories; but, with ourgoal, it can only be considered partially right. Therefore, theclinician asks the child to relate the previous contribution tothe story unit information, which is a mid-level move.

In (4), the child provides a response that is only partiallycorrect for a different reason: While "setting" is correct,"starting event" is an error-he has not yet mentioned thestarting event of the story. The clinician indirectly providesfeedback that this response was not correct, and then in (6)asks the child to consider the meaning of setting. Bill'sresponse is again partially correct because "riding a bike"is not part of the setting but is a minor part of the startingevent. (The clinician may have confused Bill in (8) bystating that what he said was not the setting, when in factpart of his statement was setting information.) The clinicianthen asks him what the setting is "supposed to be," a clearindication that the cue card should be consulted. In (10),the child does this, and reads the information, which is acorrect response to the clinician's previous move. However,he once again provides a partially correct contribution in(12), in that the dog is not part of the setting. The clinicianprovides direct feedback as to why the child's statementwas in error, and then in (14) uses a low-level move thatonly requires Bill to provide a bit of information from thestory, which he then provides.

The clinician then prompts for another piece of informa-tion about the setting, but chooses to move quickly in (20)to a low level to get the information out, rather thanspending time on it, since she assumed the child hadforgotten it by this time and it would not further theoverall goal to have him try to recall it.

Example 3. Key point: Reducing the child's reliance onthe clinician's mediation

1. C So, what should come next in the story[HIGH]?

2. B (looks at cue card} Uh, starting events [PAR-TIAL].

3. C

4. C

5. B

Mmhm pauses for several seconds}.

And what is a starting event like [MID]?

{looks at cue card} Actions or events that startthe story [PARTIAL].

6. C {pauses for several seconds) So in this story,what was our starting event [MID]?

7. B He was riding his bike [PARTIAL].

8. C And trailing intonation} [LOW]?

9. B He saw a little dog [CORRECT].

10. C He saw a little dog, good Bill [FEEDBACK].

In this example, which came immediately after theprevious one in the session, the clinician again begins witha high-level move. However, she does not immediatelyprovide the mid-level move after Bill's partially correct

response in (2); instead, she merely acknowledges it andpauses in both (3) and (6) to allow the child to completethe response. The pauses alone did not cue the child thathe should provide more information, and the clinician wenton to provide mid-level moves. The clinician was attempt-ing to shift responsibility to Bill for the task, but he didnot spontaneously accept it. He appears to rely on theinteractive nature of intervention and expects to provide asingle response per turn to the clinician's questions-a notunusual pattern in both clinic and classroom settings.However, the goal of the clinician in Vygotskian mediationis to go beyond correct responses and to shift responsibilityto the child when possible.

Example 4. Key point: Staying at a high level to allowBill to take responsibility for the task

1. C All right, what comes next in the story [HIGH]?

2. B He called to the dog [ERROR].

3. C I'm thinking what part of the story comes next[HIGH]?

4. B {looks at cue card} Um. feelings and thoughts[PARTIAL].

5. B He thought that if he would call the dog, thenthe boy could pet him [CORRECT].

Once again, the clinician follows up a correct answer (#6in the previous example) with a high-level move. Bill skipsa section of the story in (2) and thus is in error; if he hadnot skipped a section, he would have only been partiallycorrect because he had not related the story part to thestory units. The clinician chooses to treat the error as anerror with respect to the overall goal, rather than focusingon the fact that he skipped the internal response part.Presumably, she focused on the overall goal interpretationbecause she wanted him to take responsibility for the twoparts of the goal without waiting for a mid-level movefrom her. And in fact, in (4) and (5), he produces aresponse that meets the two aspects of the overall goal,without an intervening clinician move. We consider this ashift in responsibility from the clinician to the child, in thata high-level move was successful in prompting the child tosatisfy the goal requirements.

Example 5. Key point: Bill takes responsibility foroverall goal

1. C What comes next in the story [HIGH]?

2. B {looks at cue card) Oh, attempts [PARTIAL].

3. C All right [FEEDBACK].

4. B Uh, the one attempt, he calls to the dog[CORRECT]?

In this example, with merely an intervening acknowledg-ment by the clinician in (3), Bill carries out both parts ofthe overall goal. Thus, it appears that the clinician has beensuccessful for transferring some of the responsibility for thegoal to the child.

Thus, we see that the clinician moved from high to midto occasionally low moves in response to the child's correctand incorrect contributions. By Example 5 the child hadbegun to take on more responsibility for overall task-he

Schneider * Watkins 165

provided both the story unit and the part of the story thatconstituted that unit. We believe that with more interven-tions like this one, Bill would gradually take more andmore responsibility for the storytelling and retelling, andwould eventually internalize the process of using storyunits to produce better and more complete stories.

Preliminary support for such increases in Bill's story-telling competence can be seen in Example 6. In thisexample, Bill is responsible for generating his own story,rather than retelling a story told by the clinician. This is adifficult task, which requires Bill not to retell storyelements, but to generate appropriate story elementsindependently. Up to this point in the intervention, storyretelling skills had been emphasized; note that although Billis generating rather than retelling in this task, he can stillmake use of his knowledge of story grammar elements, aswell as his cue card.

Example 6. Key point: Bill's ability to use storyretelling skills in a story generation task.

1. C I want you to make up just a real simple story.

2. C What I do want you to remember is>>

3. B

4. C

5. C

6. B

What a setting was.

Yes, to include the important parts of a story.

OK, all right.

{reviews cue card without prompt from clini-cian} Setting, starting, feelings and thoughts,attempts, results, and reactions.

7. C Okay, very good.

8. C All right, how should you start your story?

9. B (looks at cue card before talking} One day, myteacher. Ms. Smith. had to go to jury duty.

10. C OK, Bill, that was a very good start to thestory.

11. C

12. B

13. C

14. C

15. B

16. C

17. B

And what part of the story was that?

The setting.

Excellent.

OK, what comes next?

The starting event.

Mmhm.

She was down at the courthouse and- she had togo to jury duty down at the courthouse.

In Bill's story. going to the courthouse is the initiatingevent that sets off an internal response: The teacher worriesabout her class misbehaving in her absence.3 Despite thefact that this was a different storytelling task than used inpreceding intervention activities, Bill used the cue card inplanning and beginning the story ((6), (9)) and was able togenerate appropriate story events ((9), (17)) and accuratelyidentify story elements ((12), (15)).

3 We accepted Blil's submission of "having to go on jury duty" as settinginformation and "going to the courthouse" as the initiating event. Althoughalternative mterpretations are possible. it Is reasonable to see the jury dutyas background for the real initiating event-the trip to the courthouse,necessitating the absence of the teacher from the classroom.

166 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS Vol. 27

What if we had found that storytelling tasks were toodifficult, that is, that even low moves did not help Billsucceed in telling stories? This would have meant that theoverall goals we had identified were not within Bill'sZPD-in other words, that they were not in the range inwhich he could complete a task with the benefit of adultassistance. If the task had been too easy, that is, if highmoves alone were sufficient to complete it. then that wouldalso mean that it was not in his zone. In these cases, thegoal would need to be adjusted so that it was beyond hisindependent functioning but within his functioning withassistance. Goals also need to be adjusted as the child isable to take responsibility for a particular overall goal.

DISCUSSION

To relate our intervention back to Wertsch's (1984)discussion of the ZPD: Bill's definition of a narrativesituation was minimal-it appeared to consist of giving anyinformation, however tangentially related to the topic, in noparticular order. We were trying to change his definition byproviding him with a story grammar framework for hisstories. We tried to accomplish this in a dynamic way bymediating his use of the story grammar framework when hewas in the process of telling or retelling stories. Billappeared to be ready for such an approach in that hiscurrent level of language skills included the syntactic andsemantic skills needed to formulate utterances when tellingthe stories, as well as the literacy skills needed to use thewritten form of mediation.

In the clinical interactions, the clinician attempted toachieve intersubjectivity by trying to understand Bill'sunderstanding of the situation while attempting to bringhim closer to her own understanding. Thus, she wasattempting to mediate his performance in the narrative taskby taking on more or less responsibility for the overall goalas was necessary at any given point.

Our plan for this intervention was specific to theparticular goal for this interaction and this child, namely,definitions of high, mid, and low levels of responsibilityfor the goal, and of the goal itself. The use of two formsof mediation, the written cue card and the clinician's levelsof assistance, were also geared to this particular interven-tion. However, some aspects are more generally applicable:the notion of levels of assistance, the use of which aredetermined by the correct responses or errors of the child;and the notion of transferring responsibility to the child forthe overall goal of the intervention.

We mentioned earlier that although clinicians often feelthat they are already interacting with clients in a way thatcorresponds to scaffolding, on closer inspection, it oftenappears that the clinician is directing the interaction andretaining responsibility for the overall goals. In this casestudy, considerable effort was required for the clinician toadjust her level of assistance in response to the child's levelof performance, rather than to apply a predetermined set ofstrategies for language facilitation. This moment-to-momentadaptation is the essence of Vygotskian intervention and

April 1996

challenges the clinician who has learned to apply interven-tion techniques in the same manner across contexts, skilllevels, and activities. For the clinician attempting to useVygotskian mediation, significant effort in planning andpracticing the use of levels of assistance and appropriatemediation moves will be required, as will ongoing evalua-tion of intervention sessions. We have found that theassistance of a colleague with whom the clinician candiscuss and analyze intervention sessions is invaluable inthis process.

The components of the intervention and the strategies theclinician found useful in learning to implement the inter-vention are summarized in Table 3. Planning and imple-menting this intervention involved five primary steps. Thefirst and final steps are typical of most language interven-tion approaches. The three intermediate steps, however, arespecific to a Vygotskian approach.

In learning to successfully implement these componentsof a Vygotskian model, particular strategies were founduseful by the clinician. For example, in developing media-tion techniques for Bill, it was helpful to consider Bill'sstrengths, such as his literacy skills. This led to the use ofa cue card to supplement verbal mediation. It was alsonecessary to begin intervention by trying out various levelsof assistance and assessing Bill's responses in order toarrive at appropriate levels of mediation. Further, theclinician initially found it challenging to recognize targetbehaviors and their level of accuracy/inaccuracy on-line.Two strategies were helpful here. The clinician planned andeven scripted particular stories and utterances and identifiedthe level of accuracy associated with them. In addition, itwas helpful to begin the intervention using a relativelysimple task; focusing primarily on story retelling narrowedthe range of Bill's productions, and enabled the clinician tobetter provide assistance at the optimal level. Finally, interms of adjusting levels of assistance on-line, it was alsobeneficial for the clinician to review videotaped interven-

tion sessions. Transcription of narrative activities wasneeded to fully track the levels of assistance provided inresponse to particular aspects of Bill's story production.Although this is a labor-intensive activity, it is likely to bebeneficial for a clinician beginning to apply a Vygotskianperspective.

CONCLUSIONS

In general, we believe that the effort invested in applyingVygotskian principles to clinical interactions has thepotential for strong return in the diversity of cases andsettings to which they could be applied, and in effective-ness as an intervention approach. Vygotskian principles arecompatible with the underlying premise on which mostlanguage intervention sessions are structured-the beliefthat social interactions, appropriately engineered, canpromote change in a child's language system.

At present, limited research has specifically focused onthe application of Vygotskian principles to languageintervention settings. This article represents a preliminaryattempt in that direction: we hope future research will bedirected toward modifying and extending this basicapproach to clients with diverse language impairments invaried treatment settings. In addition, investigationsspecifically directed toward evaluating the effectiveness ofmediation in clinical settings are warranted.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Portions of this article were originally presented as part of ashort course, "Vygotskian Developmental Theory and LanguageIntervention," at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Associa-tion Annual Convention, November 1991. The authors' names are

Table 3. Implementing Vygotskian intervention: Strategies for clinicians.

Strategies for implementing a VygotskianStandard intervention components Specific concerns of a gotskian approach approach

1. Establish intervention goals and desiredoutcomes.

2. Develop mediation techniques; specify 2a. Consider child's current performance, aslevels of assistance. well as useful strengths.

2b. Conduct diagnostic intervention sessions,trying and evaluating various forms ofmediation.

3. Recognize target behaviors and their level 3a. Plan (script) possible child utterances,of accuracy on-line. identify level of accuracy and appropriate

clinician mediation.3b. Begin with a simplified task (e.g., start

with simple narratives min a retellingactivity).

4. Adjust levels of assistance on-line. 4a. See 3a and 3b above.4b. Use video- and/or audiotape to review

sessions; transcribe sessions to trackclinician and child performance morefully.

5. Monitor change in child's skills over time.

Schneider * Watkins 167

listed alphabetically; however, both authors contributed in equalamounts to the collaboration. The authors would like to thankAnne van Kleeck, Bonnie Brinton, and Wayne Secord for theircomments on the article.

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Received June 6. 1994

Accepted June 13, 1995

Contact author: Phyllis Schneider, PhD, Department of SpeechPathology and Audiology, University of Alberta, 2-70 Corbett Hall,Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G4, CANADA

APPENDIX. BASELINE NARRATIVES

Key: B Bill is speakerC Clinician is speaker= Transcriber comment

Note: Some clinician utterances have been removed toclarify examples.

Example 1: Personal Experience Narrative

Bill was asked to identify an interesting recent event oractivity, and then "tell a story" about it.

C Okay, tell me the whole story of your trip to the circus.B Okay. We had to find a parking space.= B pauses.C You had to find a parking space?B We couldn't find it bad. The parking garage, it was realbad. Cause they had animals down on the second floor. Imean first floor.= B pauses.C That's kind of strange.B Stinks.= B pauses.C All right, you have a good start.B Okay, now, we bought tickets. And we bought a bookwith posters, a poster in it. Tell them all about it. And wehad to find a seat. Our seats. The 127.= B pauses.C That was your seat? Could you see pretty well?B We seen pretty good.C All right, tell me more about it.B There was one thing that I liked. That is when they shotthe big gun off.

Example 2: Generating a Story from a Starter

Bill was given a phrase to begin a story, and asked to "tella whole story" with it. In this story. the starter used wasfrom Merritt & Liles (1987).

C Okay, here's a sentence to help you get started. Onceupon a time two friends were in a deep dark cave.B Deep dark cave. And they saw lots of bats. So they wenton. They seen stalactites.= B pauses.C It's a good story so far.B My mind went blank.= C summarizes B's story thus far.C Okay, keep going.B And they saw> Do they really have monsters in caves?C For the story they could.B They have a monster in the cave following right behindthem. And the kid's screaming. They go "help."= B pauses.C Doing good so far.B Okay.= B pauses.C Don't give up.B I think I don't have any more sentences to put together.= C summarizes story thus far.B And the cops came. The cops came to help them. No,let's make it the ranger helped them.= B pauses.C That's good.

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Example 3: Retelling a Story

Bill was asked to listen carefully to a story that was goingto be read aloud to him, because when he finished listen-ing, he would tell the story to the clinician. In thisexample, the story Bill heard was the version of BuriedAlive developed by Merritt & Liles (1987). This story is 28sentences in length and follows story grammar format. Inbrief, the story involves a truck driver trapped in a blizzardand his multiple attempts to resolve the situation. The truckdriver is successful, and is ultimately rescued.

C Now, tell back the story to me as much as you canremember.

B I don't know if I can remember that much.C Do the best that you can and tell me what you remem-ber.B Jim had been a truck driver for how much years?C You can just make up how many. It doesn't matter.B Three.= B pauses.C Keep going. You don't have to remember the story wordfor word. You can just give me the general idea.B A whole week went by.C Doing good.B Then the state police came and started digging snow out.Then they saw how Jim was safe. But he was hungry andtired.

April 1996170 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS * Vol. 27