Preschool Children’s Narratives and Performance on the Peabody Individualized Achievement Test – Revised: Evidence of a Relation between Early Narrative and Later Mathematical Ability
Restricted accessOtherFirst published online June, 2004
Preschool Children’s Narratives and Performance on the Peabody Individualized Achievement Test – Revised: Evidence of a Relation between Early Narrative and Later Mathematical Ability
In this study, different measures derived from 41 3- to 4-year-old children’s selfgenerated picture-book narratives and their performance on a general measure of language development (TELD-2, Hresko, Reid & Hammill, 1991) were evaluated with respect to their possible predictive relation two years later with 5 areas of academic achievement (General information, Reading recognition, Reading comprehension, Math, Spelling) assessed using the Peabody Individualized Achievement Test – Revised (PIAT-R, Markwardt, 1998). Children’s TELD-2 scores were significantly predictive of their General information scores. The narrative measures of conjunction use, event content, perspective shift, and mental state reference were significantly predictive of later Math scores. Post-hocanalyses revealed that, for the same children, the observed relations with Math achievement did not arise with nonspontaneous adult-prompted narrations.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Aram, D. M. & Nation, J. E. (1980). Preschool language disorders and subsequent language and academic difficulties . Journal of Communication Disorders, 13, 159–170 .
2.
Astington, J. W. & Jenkins, J. M. (1995). Theory of mind development and social understanding . Cognition and Emotion, 9, 151–165 .
3.
Balow, I. H. (1993). Metropolitan Achievement Test – Primary. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace, Inc.
4.
Bamberg, M. & Damrad-Frye, R. (1991). On the ability to provide evaluative comments: Further explorations of children’s narrative competencies . Journal of Child Language, 18, 689–710 .
5.
Bartsch, K. & Wellman, H. M. (1995). Children talk about the mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
6.
Berman, R. A. (1996). Form and function in developing narrative abilities. In D. I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratzis & J. Guo (Eds), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp(pp. 343–367). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum .
7.
Berman, R. A. & Slobin, D. I. (1994). Relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic developmental study. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum .
8.
Bishop, D. V. M. & Edmundson, A. (1987). Language-impaired 4-year-olds: Distinguishing transient from persistant impairment . Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 52, 156–173 .
9.
Bokus, B. & Shugar, G. W. (1996). The child as narrator: Choice of content known or unknown to the listener . Polish Psychological Bulletin, 27, 217–230 .
10.
Brown, U., Hammill, D. & Weiderholt, J. (1978). Test of Reading Comprehension: A method of assessing the understanding of written language. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed .
11.
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
12.
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
13.
Cameron, C. A., Hunt, A. K. & Linton, M. J. (1988). Medium effects on children’s story rewriting and story retelling . First Language, 8, 3–18 .
14.
Charman, T. & Shmueli-Goetz, Y. (1998). The relationship between theory of mind, language, and narrative discourse: An experimental study . Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive/Current Psychology of Cognition, 17, 245–271 .
15.
Cohen, R. (1998). Investigating the relationship of attention with general and pragmatic language skills in typically developing preschoolers. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
16.
Denckla, M. & Rudel, R. (1976). ‘Rapid automatised naming’: Dyslexia differentiated from other reading disabilities . Neuropsychologia, 14, 471–479 .
17.
Devlin, K. (2000). The math gene: How mathematical thinking evolved and how numbers are like gossip. New York: Basic Books .
18.
Dickinson, D. K. & McCabe, A. (1991). A social interactional account of language and literacy development. In J. Kavanough (Ed.), The language continuum(pp. 1–40). Parkton, MD: York Press .
19.
Dunn, L. & Dunn, L. (1981). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance .
20.
Dunn, L. M. & Markwardt, F. C. (1970). Peabody Individual Achievement Test. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service .
21.
Fazio, B. B., Naremore, R. C. & Connell, P. J. (1996). Tracking children from poverty at risk for specific language impairment: A 3-year longitudinal study . Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 39, 611–624 .
22.
Feagans, L. (1982). The development and importance of narratives for school adaptation. In L. Feagans & D. C. Farran (Eds), The language of children reared in poverty(pp. 95–116). New York: Academic Press .
23.
Feagans, L. & Appelbaum, M. I. (1986). Validation of language subtypes in learning disabled children . Journal of Experimental Psychology, 78, 358–364 .
24.
Feagans, L. & Short, E. J. (1984). Developmental differences in the comprehension and production of narratives by reading-disabled and normally achieving children . Child Development, 55, 1727–1736 .
25.
Fox, R. (1991). Developing awareness of mind reflected in children’s narrative writing . British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9, 281–298 .
26.
Gee, J. P. (1991). Memory and myth: A perspective on narrative. In A. McCabe & P. Peterson (Eds), Developing narrative structure(pp. 1–25). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum .
27.
Geva, E. & Olson, D. (1983). Children’s story-retelling . First Language, 4, 85–110 .
28.
Gray, W. & Robinson, T. (1963). Gray’s Oral Reading Test. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services .
29.
Hemphill, L., Picardi, N. & Tager-Flusberg, H. (1991). Narrative as an index of communicative competence in mildly retarded children . Applied Psycholinguistics, 12, 263–279 .
30.
Hewitt, L. E. & Duchan, J. F. (1995). Subjectivity in children’s fictional narrative . Topics in Language Disorders, 15, 1–15 .
31.
Hieronymus, A. N., Hoover, H. D. & Lindquist, E. F. (1986). Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Chicago, IL: Riverside .
32.
Hresko, W. F., Reid, D. K. & Hammill, D. (1991). Test of Early Language Development – 2nd edition. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed .
33.
Jastak, S. & Jastak, S. (1976). Wide Range Achievement Test. Wilmington, DE: Guidance Associates .
34.
Jastak, S. & Wilkinson, G. (1984). Wide Range Achievement Test – Revised. Wilmington, DL: Jastak Associates, Inc.
35.
Jenkins, J. M. & Astington, J. W. (2000). Theory of mind and social behavior: Causal models tested in a longitudinal study . Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 46, 203–220 .
36.
Kirk, S., McCarthy, J. & Kirk, W. (1968). Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Ability. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press .
37.
Klecan-Aker, J. S. & Caraway, T. H. (1997). A study of the relationship of storytelling ability and reading comprehension in fourth and sixth grade African-American children . European Journal of Disorders of Communication, 32, 109–25 .
38.
Klecan-Aker, J. S. & Hedrick, D. L. (1985). A study of the syntactic language skills of normal school-age children . Language, Speech, & Hearing Services in Schools, 16, 187–198 .
39.
Klee, T., Schaffer, M., May, S., Membrino, I. & Mougey, K. (1989). A comparison of the age-MLU relation in normal and specifically language-impaired preschool children . Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 54, 226–233 .
40.
Liles, B. Z. (1993). Narrative discourse in children with language disorders and children with normal language: A critical review of the literature . Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 36, 868–882 .
41.
MacWhinney, B. (1995). The Childes Project: Tools for analyzing talk(2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum .
42.
MacWhinney, B. & Snow, C. (1985). The Child Language Data Exchange System . Journal of Child Language, 12, 271–296 .
43.
MacWhinney, B. & Snow, C. (1990). The Child Language Data Exchange System: An update . Journal of Child Language, 17, 457–472 .
44.
Markwardt, F. C. (1998). Peabody Individual Achievement Test – Revised.(Normative update). Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service .
45.
Mason, J. & Stewart, J. (1989). Early Childhood Diagnostic Instrument. Iowa City, IA: American Testronics .
46.
Mayer, M. (1967). A boy, a dog and a frog. New York, NY: Dial Press .
47.
Mayer, M. (1969). Frog, where are you? New York, NY: Dial Press .
48.
Mayer, M. (1974). Frog goes to dinner. New York, NY: Dial Press .
49.
McCabe, A. & Rollins, P. R. (1994). Assessment of preschool narrative skills . American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 3, 45–56 .
50.
McKee, G., Malvern, D. & Richards, B. (2000). Measuring vocabulary diversity using dedicated software . Literary and Linguistic Computing, 15, 323–337 .
51.
Menig-Peterson, C. & McCabe, A. (1978). Children’s orientation of a listener to the context of their narratives . Developmental Psychology, 14, 582–592 .
52.
Menyuk, P., Chesnick, M., Liebergott, J. W., Korngold, B., D’Agostino, R. & Belanger, A. (1991). Predicting reading problems in at-risk children . Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 34, 893–903 .
53.
Miller, J. F. (1991). Quantifying productive language disorders. In J. F. Miller (Ed.), Research on child language disorders: A decade of progress(pp. 211–220). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed .
54.
Newcomer, P. & Hammill, D. (1982). The Test of Oral Language Development – Primary. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed .
55.
Newcomer, P. & Hammill, D. (1988). The Test of Oral Language Development – 2 Primary. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed .
56.
O’Neill, D. K. & Holmes, A. (2002). Young preschoolers’ ability to reference story characters: The contribution of gesture and character speech . First Language, 22, 73–103 .
57.
Orum, L. (1986). The education of Hispanics: status and implications. Washington, DC: National Council of La Raza .
58.
Owens, R. F. (1995). Language disorders: A functional approach to assessment and intervention. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon .
59.
Paul, R. (1995). Language disorders from infancy through adolescence: Assessment and intervention. St Louis, MI: Mosby .
60.
Pelligrini, A. D. (1982). The construction of cohesive text by preschoolers in two play contexts . Discourse Processes, 5, 101–108 .
61.
Peterson, C. & McCabe, A. (1983). Developmental psycholinguistics: Three ways of looking at a child’s narrative. New York: Plenum Press .
62.
Peterson, C. & McCabe, A. (1991). Linking children’s connective use and narrative macrostructure. In A. McCabe & C. Peterson (Eds), Developing narrative structure(p. 29–53). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum .
63.
Reilly, J. S. (1992). How to tell a good story: The intersection of language and affect in children’s narratives . Journal of Narrative and Life History, 2, 355–377 .
64.
Richner, E. S. & Nicolopoulou, A. (2001). The narrative construction of differing conceptions of the person in the development of young children’s social understanding . Early Education and Development, 12, 393–432 .
65.
Roth, F. P., Speece, D. L., Cooper, D. H. & De La Paz, S. (1996). Unresolved mysteries: How do metalinguistic and narrative skills connect with early reading? The Journal of Special Education, 30, 257–277 .
66.
Scott, C. M. (1988). A perspective on the evaluation of school children’s narratives . Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 19, 51–66 .
67.
Shapiro, L. R. & Hudson, J. A. (1991). Tell me a make-believe story: Coherence and cohesion in young children’s picture-elicted narratives . Developmental Psychology, 27, 960–974 .
68.
Snow, C. E., Tabors, P. O., Nicholson, P. A. & Kurland, B. F. (1995). SHELL: Oral language and early literacy skills in kindergarten and first-grade children . Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 10, 37–48 .
69.
Snyder, L. S. & Downey, D. M. (1991). The language-reading relationship in normal and readingdisabled children . Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 34, 129–140 .
70.
Stein, N. & Glenn, C. (1979). An analysis of story comprehension in elementary school children. In R. O. Freedle (Ed.), New directions in discourse processing(pp. 53–120). Norwood, NJ: Ablex .
71.
Strong, C. J. (1998). The Strong Narrative Assessment Procedure. Eau Claire, WI: Thinking Publications .
72.
Tager-Flusberg, H. (1995). Once upon a ribbit: Stories narrated by autistic children . British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13, 45–59 .
73.
Wechsler, D. (1974). Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Revised. New York: Psychological Corporation .
74.
Westby, C. (1984). Development of narrative language abilities. In G. Wallach & K. Butler (Eds), Language learning disabilities in school-age children(pp. 103–127). Baltimore, MA: Williams & Wilkins .
75.
Wiederholt, J. & Bryant, B. (1986). Gray Oral Reading Test. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed .
76.
Wiig, E. & Semel, E. (1980). The Clinical Evaluation of Language Function. Columbus, OH: Charles C. Merrill .
77.
Wolf, D. & Hicks, D. (1989). The voices within narratives: The development of intertextuality in young children’s stories . Discourse Processes, 12, 329–351 .
