The Effect of a Narrative Intervention on Preschoolers’ Language Skills

ed from: Spencer, T. D., & Slocum, T. A. (2010). The effect of a narrative intervention on story retelling and personal story generation skills of preschoolers with risk factors and narrative language delays. Journal of Early Intervention, 32(3), 178-199. ImplIcatIons summary purpose Small group narrative intervention can be efficient and cost-effective. Children enjoy the game-like procedures, which can be carried out in classrooms or clinics. An understanding of story structure can support the acquisition of other literacy-related skills that are important for reading. Thus, these procedures could be applied with children who have or are at risk of having a disability. Narrative intervention was delivered to children in groups of four for 10-15 minutes a day over five weeks. Pictures, colored icons, and systematic scaffolding procedures were used to explicitly teach story structure in retell and personal story formats. Intervention effects were tested using a strong research design and results indicated that all children’s narrative skills improved. The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of a small group narrative intervention on preschoolers’ retell and personal narratives. Introduction Narrative language is an important aspect of language with direct relevance to the social and academic development of young children. It is well established that children with disabilities display poorer storytelling abilities than their typically developing peers (Colozzo, Gillam, Wood, Schnell, & Johnston, 2011). Children who have adequate storytelling skills receive more opportunities to engage socially with peers and more opportunity to practice language. Narrative skills of young children predict academic success in elementary school (Bishop & Edmundson, 1987). Understanding story structure and story retelling is a critical language comprehension task embedded in states’ early learning guidelines. The purpose of the study featured here was to examine the effect of a small group narrative intervention on preschoolers’ story retells and personal stories. Featured Study Participants included five 4-year-old children who attended Head Start. Children had delayed language skills and additional factors that put them at risk for developing reading problems in kindergarten. A speechlanguage pat hologist and an early childhood special educator served as interventionists. They delivered the intervention four days a week for 10-15 minutes. Stories used during intervention were designed to be relevant to young children (e.g., getting dirty, playing with siblings, losing something) to facilitate transfer of language improvements to children’s own personal stories. During the intervention, the interventionist modeled a story, led the group in retelling the story, and provided each of the four children an opportunity to independently tell the same story or a personal story. Teaching procedures included the use of simple pictures, colored icons representing story parts, and systematic prompting and prompt fading. Additionally, the intervention involved a variety of receptive language games to enhance active listening and participation. A multiple baseline experimental design across five participants was employed for this study. To collect daily narrative samples from each child, an examiner told a short story and asked the child to retell it. Children were also asked to share personal stories. Narratives were scored for completeness and complexity. Completeness About the Institute: The Institute for Human Development is a research and training program located on Northern Arizona University. Our program is part of a national network of University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD). In Arizona, we are designated as one of two Arizona University Centers on Disabilities (AzUCD). P.O. Box 5630 Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5630 [email protected] Phone: 928-523-4791 TTY: 928-523-1695 Fax: 928-523-9127 2012 Issue 1