Chapter published in:
Developing Narrative Comprehension: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives
Edited by Ute Bohnacker and Natalia Gagarina
[Studies in Bilingualism 61] 2020
► pp. 150–170

Narrative comprehension in simultaneously bilingual Finnish-Swedish and monolingual Finnish children

| University of Oulu , Finland
| University of Oulu , Finland
We analysed narrative comprehension in 5-to-6-year-old simultaneously bilingual Finnish-Swedish (n = 16) and monolingual Finnish children (n = 16) by using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN). We assessed mean total narrative comprehension scores for bilingual children in both of their languages and for monolingual children in Finnish, in both telling and retelling conditions. We compared bilingual and monolingual children’s narrative comprehension in Finnish and analysed the association between comprehension and production. We also analysed the children’s ability to answer different types of comprehension questions (i.e., questions probing goals, internal state terms, and questions requiring both the ability to draw inferences and to explain answers). We found no difference in total narrative comprehension scores for bilingual children between their two languages or between monolingual and bilingual children. This suggests language-independent narrative comprehension. We found no difference in narrative comprehension between telling and retelling and no correlation between narrative comprehension and production. However, we found a clear question type effect. Children performed better on questions probing goals or internal state terms, but questions that required both inferencing and ability to explain answers were very demanding. In conclusion, detailed analysis of narrative comprehension provides knowledge on how children create a coherent understanding of a story and utilise information in the comprehension process.
Keywords: bilingualism, narrative comprehension, preschool children, MAIN
Published online: 10 December 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.61.05kun
References

References

Bohnacker, U.
(2016) Tell me a story in English or Swedish: Narrative production and comprehension in bilingual preschoolers and first graders. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37(1), 19–48. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Boerma, T., Leseman, P., Timmermeister, M., Wijnen, F., & Blom, E.
(2016) Narrative abilities of monolingual and bilingual children with and without language impairment: Implications for clinical practice. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 51(6), 626–638. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cain, K.
(2003) Text comprehension and its relation to coherence and cohesion in children’s fictional narratives. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 21, 335–351. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Curenton, S. M.
(2011) Understanding the landscapes of stories: The association between preschoolers’ narrative comprehension and production skills and cognitive abilities. Early Child Development and Care, 181(6), 791–808. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dodwell, K., & Bavin, E. L.
(2008) Children with specific language impairment: An investigation of their narratives and memory. International Journal of Communication and Language Disorders, 43(2), 201–218. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gagarina, N., Klop, D., Kunnari, S., Tantele, K., Välimaa, T., Balčiūnienė, I., Bohnacker, U., & Walters, J.
(2012) MAIN: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN). ZAS Papers in Linguistics, 56. Berlin: Leibniz Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft.Google Scholar
(2015) Assessment of narrative abilities in bilingual children. In S. Armon-Lotem, J. de Jong, & N. Meir (Eds.), Assessing multilingual children: Disentangling bilingualism from language impairment (pp. 243–276). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gutiérrez-Clellen, V. F.
(2002) Narratives in two languages: Assessing performance of bilingual children. Linguistics and Education, 13(2), 175–197. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hayward, D. V., Schneider, P., & Gillam, R. B.
(2009) Age and task-related effects on young children’s understanding of a complex picture story. The Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 55(1), 54–72.Google Scholar
Hipfner-Boucher, K., Milburn, T., Weitzman, E., Greenlee, J., Pelletier, J., & Girolametto, L.
(2015) Narrative abilities in subgroubs of English language learners and monolingual peers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19(6), 677–692. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, J.
(2008) Narratives: Twenty-five years later. Topics in Language Disorders, 28(2), 93–98. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kapalková, S., Polišenská, K., Marková, L., & Fenton, J.
(2016) Narrative abilities in early successive bilingual Slovak-English children: A cross-language comparison. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37(1), 145–164. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kendeou, P., Lynch, J. S., van den Broek, P., Espin, C. A., White, M. J., & Kremer, K. E.
(2005) Developing successful readers: Building early comprehension skills through television viewing and listening. Early Childhood Education Journal, 33(2), 91–98. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kunnari, S., Välimaa, T., & Laukkanen-Nevala, P.
(2016) Macrostructure in the narratives of monolingual Finnish and bilingual Finnish-Swedish children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37(1), 123–144. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kunnari, S., & Välimaa, T.
(2012) Part II. MAIN: Finnish version (suomi). Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN). ZAS Papers in Linguistics, 56. Berlin: Leibniz Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft.Google Scholar
Lepola, J., Lynch, J., Laakkonen, E., Silvén, M., & Niemi, P.
(2012) The role of inference making and other language skills in the development of narrative listening comprehension in 4–6-year-old children. Reading Research Quarterly, 47(3), 259–282. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Letts, C., & Leinonen, E.
(2001) Comprehension of inferential meaning in language-impaired and language normal children. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 36(3), 307–328. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lindgren, J.
(2018) Developing narrative competence. Swedish, Swedish-German and Swedish- Turkish children aged 4–6 (Studia Linguistica Upsaliensia 19). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Lorch, E. P., Milich, R., & Sanchez, P.
(1998) Story comprehension in children with ADHD. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 1(3), 163–178. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Loukusa, S., Mäkinen, L., Gabbatore, I., Laukkanen-Nevala, P., & Leinonen, E.
(2017) Understanding contextual and social meaning in typically developing Finnish-Speaking four-to-eight-year-old children. Psychology of Language and Communication, 21(1), 408–428. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, J. S., van den Broek, P., Kremer, K. E., Kendeou, P., White, M. J., & Lorch, E. P.
(2008) The development of narrative comprehension and its relation to other reading skills. Reading Psychology, 29(4), 327–365. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Maviş, I., Tunçer, M., & Gagarina, N.
(2016) Macrostructure components in narrations of Turkish–German bilingual children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37(1), 69–90. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, M. L., Gillam, R. B., Peña, E. D., & Gulley-Faehnle, A.
(2003) Measures of language development in fictional narratives of Latino children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 34(4), 332–342. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mäkinen, L., Gabbatore, I., Loukusa, S., Kunnari, S., & Schneider, P.
(2019) A comparison of picture-based narratives by Finnish, Italian and English-speaking children. Early Education and Development. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nummenmaa, L.
(2009) Käyttäytymistieteiden tilastolliset menetelmät. Helsinki: Tammi.Google Scholar
Oakhill, J. V., & Cain, K.
(2007) Introduction to comprehension development. In K. Cain & J. Oakhill (Eds.), Children’s comprehension problems in oral and written language: A cognitive perspective (pp. 3–40). New York, NY: Guilford.Google Scholar
Otwinowska, A., Mieszkowska, K., Białecka-Pikul, M., Opacki, M., & Haman, E.
(2018) Retelling a model story improves the narratives of Polish-English bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Online First, 1–25. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Paris, A. H., & Paris, S. G.
(2003) Assessing narrative comprehension in young children. Reading Research Quarterly, 38(1), 36–76. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Potocki, A., Ecalle, J., & Magnan, A.
(2013) Narrative comprehension skills in 5-year-old children: Correlational analysis and comprehender profiles. The Journal of Educational Research, 106(1), 14–26. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Price, J. R., Roberts, J. E., & Jackson, S. C.
(2006) Structural development of the fictional narratives of African American preschoolers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 37(3), 178–190. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Roch, M., Florit, E., & Levorato, C.
(2016) Narrative competence of Italian–English bilingual children between 5 and 7 years. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37(1), 49–67. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, L. R., & Hudson, J. A.
(1991) Tell me a make-believe story: Coherence and cohesion in young children’s picture-elicited narratives. Developmental Psychology, 27(6), 960–974. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, P., Hayward, D., & Dubé, R. V.
(2006) Storytelling from pictures using the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument. Journal of Speech–Language Pathology and Audiology, 30(4), 224–238.Google Scholar
Stein, N. L., & Albro, E. R.
(1997) Building complexity and coherence: Children’s use of goal structured knowledge in telling stories. In M. Bamberg (Ed.), Narrative development: Six approaches (pp. 5–44). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Association.Google Scholar
Stein, N. L., & Glenn, C. G.
(1979) An analysis of story comprehension in elementary school children. In R. Freedle (Ed.), Discourse processing: Multidisciplinary perspectives (pp. 53–120). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Statistics Finland
(2018) Statistics Finland. Retrieved from https://​www​.stat​.fi​/index​_en​.html (26 June, 2020).
Squires, K. E., Lugo-Neris, M. J., Peña, E. D., Bedore, L. M., Bohman, T. M., & Gillam, R. B.
(2014) Story retelling by bilingual children with language impairments and typically developing controls. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 49(1), 60–74. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Trabasso, T., & van den Broek, P.
(1985) Causal thinking and the representation of narrative events. Journal of Memory and Language, 24(5), 612–630. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Trabasso, T., & Rodkin, P. C.
(1994) Knowledge of goal/plans: A conceptual basis for narrating “Frog where are you?” In R. A. Berman & D. I. Slobin (Eds.), Relating events in narrative: A cross-linguistic developmental study (pp. 85–106). New York, NY: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Trabasso, T., Secco, T., & van den Broek, P.
(1984) Causal cohesion and story coherence. In H. Mandl, N. L. Stein, & T. Trabasso (Eds.), Learning and comprehension of text (pp. 83–111). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Trabasso, T., & Stein, N. L.
(1994) Using goal–plan knowledge to merge the past with the present and the future in narrating events online. In M. M. Haith, J. B. Benson, R. J. Roberts Jr., & B. F. Pennington (Eds.), The development of future-oriented processes (pp. 323–349). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Van den Broek, P., Kendeou, P., Kremer, K., Lynch, J., Butler, J., White, M. J., & Lorch, M. P.
(2005) Assessment of comprehension abilities in young children. In S. G. Paris & S. A. Stahl (Eds.), Children’s reading comprehension and assessment (pp. 107–130). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Bohnacker, Ute, Buket Öztekin & Josefin Lindgren
2020.  In Developing Narrative Comprehension [Studies in Bilingualism, 61], ► pp. 100 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.