Narrative Proficiency & School-Age Children with Language Impairment

1. Overview of Narration

This section will provide an overview of what narrative language is, what it is composed of, and why it is an important instructional target for students with language impairment.

2. Narrative Macrostructure and Microstructure

This section will summarize story elements that are typically included in the narratives of school-age students. This section will also describe specific linguistic structures that are important for the development of complete, complex narratives. Words that indicate temporal, causal, spatial and adverbial relationships in sentences will be discussed. Developmental order and the role that these words and sentence structures play in narratives will be summarized.

3. Narrative Proficiency and Students with Language Impairments

This section outlines the macro and microstructural elements that may be difficult for school age students with LI. The cognitive and memory factors that may contribute to problems developing narrative proficiency.

4. Research Support for Narrative Instruction

This section will summarize the early research supporting the use of narrative procedures for improving narrative comprehension and composition. Methodology, results and findings for studies will be discussed, as well as the levels of evidence they represent.

5. Evidence-Based Procedures for Narrative Intervention

This section will contain an review of the preceding 7 sections discussing what narrative language is, why it is important and the kinds of difficulties that school-age students with language impairments may experience in comprehension and production. The evidence-based techniques that have been drawn from the literature will be reviewed.