Narrative skills in Swedish children with language impairment

This study investigated the development of narrative skills in Swedish children with language impairment between age 5 and age 10. Seventeen children with LI and two control groups of age peers with typical development participated in a picture elicited story telling task. Analyses included measures of story content, cohesion and grammar. Our subjects showed development in different areas from age 5 to 10, but they did not perform at the level of the controls at age 10 on number of different verbs used and percent grammatically correct C-units. We conclude that preschool children with LI develop in their narrative skills over time, but not to the level of their age-peers at age 10.Learning outcomes: The reader will be able to describe areas of vulnerability in Swedish-speaking children with language impairment in general, and related to narration in particular. Furthermore, the reader will be able to describe similarities in narrative skills between Swedish-speaking and English-speaking children with language impairment.

► Swedish-speaking children with LI developed in their narration from age 5 to 10.
► They did not perform at the level of age-controls at age 10.
► Vulnerable areas were lexical variation and grammatical accuracy.