La medición por criterio de la narrativa en niños con trastorno específico del lenguaje

Several authors have described the problems that children with specific language impairment present in their narratives. There are 2 ways of assessing the narrative performance of children: through norm-referenced test, that determine the presence or absence of narrative elements; and through the criterion-reference test, which allows to describe the narratives of children on the basis of the level of development of certain elements or skills. In this context, the purpose of this study is to describe the narrative performance of children with and without specific language impairment using an adapted version of the Index of Narrative Complexity, which is a criterion-referenced test. We worked with 38 children with specific language impairment and 41 children with typical development, all attending kindergarten. Each children watched a story in audiovisual format and then retold it with a graphic support. Their narratives were transcribed and analyzed with the adapted version of the Index of Narrative Complexity. The results not only allowed observing a difference in favor of children with typical development, but it also showed that, with independence to the population to which the child belonged, the incremental development of the narrative is initially devoted to the elements associated to the causal chain of the actions an then it extended to other elements. Moreover, the adapted version of the Index of Narrative Complexity proved to be a valid and useful form of assessment that enables the speech therapist to monitor the progress of individuals in the narrative production.