Narrative capacity, or the ability to tell or retell a story, is highly predictive of both academic and social success. Further, a child’s storytelling ability is culturally grounded and socially valid to caregivers of children with language delays. Thus, narrative intervention provides a unique opportunity to develop receptive and expressive language skills in a socially valid, naturalistic context. Narrative-based intervention has been shown to increase the length and complexity of story retelling across a variety of at-risk populations, including children with specific language impairment, language delays, and autism spectrum disorder, as well as children from culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse backgrounds. Many speech-language pathologists already use narratives to target specific language structures, but the literature demonstrates that children need to understand and use complete story grammar before stories can be leveraged to develop syntactic structures or elements (Spencer and Peterson, 2020). During this presentation, participants will learn about the typical developmental sequence for narratives, as well as the cultural influences of narrative engagement and structure. Then, we will use the literature to develop a framework for developing story grammar. Finally, we will discuss specific principles of narrative intervention to develop storytelling skills and to elicit specific morphosyntactic targets in a naturalistic context. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in a case study exercise by listening to three narrative examples and developing a small group intervention plan to meet the language needs of each child.
Join Samford University as we celebrate our spring graduates.
Join Samford University as we celebrate our spring graduates.
