Who does what to whom: introduction of referents in children's storytelling from pictures.

PURPOSE This article describes the development of a measure, called First Mentions (FM), that can be used to evaluate the referring expressions that children use to introduce characters and objects when telling a story. METHOD Participants were 377 children ages 4 to 9 years (300 with typical development, 77 with language impairment) who told stories while viewing 6 picture sets. Their first mentions of 8 characters and 6 objects were scored as fully adequate, partially adequate, inadequate, or not mentioned. Total FM scores were compared across age and language groups. RESULTS There were significant differences for age and language status, as well as a significant Age × Language interaction. Within each age group except age 9, children in the typical development group attained higher scores than children in the group with language impairment. CONCLUSION These results suggest that the FM measure is a useful tool for identifying whether a child has a problem with introducing referents in stories.