Narrative comprehension in simultaneously bilingual Finnish-Swedish and
monolingual Finnish children
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.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Method
- 2.1Participants
- 2.2Procedure and design
- 2.3Statistical analysis
- 3.Results
- 3.1Narrative comprehension: Total score on comprehension questions
- 3.2Associations between narrative comprehension and production
- 3.3Children’s performance on the different comprehension
questions
- 4.Discussion
- 4.1Language comparison
- 4.2Group comparison
- 4.3Associations between narrative comprehension and production
- 4.4Task comparison
- 4.5Comprehension of different macrostructural components
- 5.Conclusions
-
Acknowledgements
-
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gagarina, N., Klop, D., Kunnari, S., Tantele, K., Välimaa, T., Balčiūnienė, I., Bohnacker, U., & Walters, J.
(
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.
Gutiérrez-Clellen, V. F.
(
2002)
Narratives
in two languages: Assessing performance of bilingual
children.
Linguistics and
Education, 13(2), 175–197.
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.
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.
Johnston, J.
(
2008)
Narratives:
Twenty-five years later.
Topics in
Language
Disorders, 28(2), 93–98.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lindgren, J.
(
2018)
Developing
narrative competence. Swedish, Swedish-German and Swedish- Turkish
children aged 4–6 (
Studia Linguistica
Upsaliensia
19). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
Lorch, E. P., Milich, R., & Sanchez, P.
(
1998)
Story
comprehension in children with
ADHD.
Clinical Child and Family
Psychology
Review, 1(3), 163–178.
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.
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.
Maviş, I., Tunçer, M., & Gagarina, N.
(
2016)
Macrostructure
components in narrations of Turkish–German bilingual
children.
Applied
Psycholinguistics, 37(1), 69–90.
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.
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.
Nummenmaa, L.
(
2009)
Käyttäytymistieteiden
tilastolliset
menetelmät. Helsinki: Tammi.
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.
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.
Paris, A. H., & Paris, S. G.
(
2003)
Assessing
narrative comprehension in young
children.
Reading Research
Quarterly, 38(1), 36–76.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Statistics
Finland
(
2018)
Statistics
Finland. Retrieved
from
[URL] (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.
Trabasso, T., & van den Broek, P.
(
1985)
Causal
thinking and the representation of narrative
events.
Journal of Memory and
Language, 24(5), 612–630.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cited by
Cited by 3 other publications
Bohnacker, Ute & Josefin Lindgren
Bohnacker, Ute, Buket Öztekin & Josefin Lindgren
Lindgren, Josefin
2023.
Age and task type effects on comprehension and production of narrative macrostructure: storytelling and retelling by Swedish-speaking children aged 6 and 8.
Frontiers in Communication 8
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 april 2024. 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.