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Narrative processing in typically developing children and children with early unilateral brain injury: seeing gesture matters
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Narrative processing in typically developing children and children with early unilateral brain injury: seeing gesture matters

Özlem Ece Demir, Joan A Fisher, Susan Goldin-Meadow and Susan C Levine
Developmental psychology, Vol.50(3), pp.815-828
03/2014
DOI: 10.1037/a0034322
PMCID: PMC4180426
PMID: 24127729
url
http://doi.org/10.1037/a0034322View
Open Access

Abstract

Narrative skill in kindergarteners has been shown to be a reliable predictor of later reading comprehension and school achievement. However, we know little about how to scaffold children's narrative skill. Here we examine whether the quality of kindergarten children's narrative retellings depends on the kind of narrative elicitation they are given. We asked this question with respect to typically developing (TD) kindergarten children and children with pre- or perinatal unilateral brain injury (PL), a group that has been shown to have difficulty with narrative production. We compared children's skill in retelling stories originally presented to them in 4 different elicitation formats: (a) wordless cartoons, (b) stories told by a narrator through the auditory modality, (c) stories told by a narrator through the audiovisual modality without co-speech gestures, and (e) stories told by a narrator in the audiovisual modality with co-speech gestures. We found that children told better structured narratives in response to the audiovisual + gesture elicitation format than in response to the other 3 elicitation formats, consistent with findings that co-speech gestures can scaffold other aspects of language and memory. The audiovisual + gesture elicitation format was particularly beneficial for children who had the most difficulty telling a well-structured narrative, a group that included children with larger lesions associated with cerebrovascular infarcts.
Child Development Magnetic Resonance Imaging Narration Humans Child, Preschool Language Development Disorders - etiology Male Brain Injuries - physiopathology Chi-Square Distribution Comprehension Gestures Female Functional Laterality - physiology Child Longitudinal Studies

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