Chapter published in:
Developing Narrative Comprehension: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives
Edited by Ute Bohnacker and Natalia Gagarina
[Studies in Bilingualism 61] 2020
► pp. 269–296

Narrative comprehension and its associations with gender and nonverbal cognitive skills in monolingual and bilingual German preschoolers

| Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University Hannover

This paper investigates the development of narrative comprehension in monolingual and simultaneously bilingual German preschoolers, in relation to the children’s gender and their nonverbal cognitive skills. MAIN (Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives) was used to assess narrative comprehension after telling (Baby Birds) and retelling (Cat) in 199 monolinguals and 66 simultaneous bilinguals. The groups did not differ significantly concerning their nonverbal cognitive skills and German language proficiency. Both the monolingual and the bilingual children were divided into three age groups (4;6–4;11, 5;0–5;5, 5;6–5;11). The narrative comprehension results pointed to significant age effects only for the monolinguals, in both elicitation modes. No gender effects were found for any group. For the nonverbal cognition and narrative comprehension measures, weak correlations obtained for both monolinguals and bilinguals. These results strengthen the idea that narrative comprehension is related to nonverbal cognitive skills of monolingual and bilingual preschoolers.

Keywords: narrative comprehension, nonverbal cognitive skills, gender, monolinguals and bilinguals, preschoolers
Article outline
  • 1.Narrative skills
    • 1.1Narrative comprehension
    • 1.2Research on nonverbal cognitive skills and narrative comprehension
    • 1.3Research on gender and narrative comprehension
  • 2.The present study
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2MAIN
    • 3.3CPM
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Narrative comprehension
    • 4.2Impact of nonverbal cognitive skills on narrative comprehension
    • 4.3Impact of gender on narrative comprehension
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 December 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.61.09weh
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