Does the choice of stimulus affect the complexity of children's oral narratives?

Abstract

There is a lack of normative information that accounts for differences that may result from use of different story stimuli in oral narrative assessment. In this study, story generations in response to a complex wordless picture book and a single-scene picture were compared in a group of sixteen 5-year-old children with normally developing language, using a story grammar analysis. The effect of stimulus was significant, with the children producing longer, more informative and more complex stories for a complex wordless picture book than for a single-scene picture. The implications for clinicians assessing oral narrative skills are discussed.