Narratives from Spanish-Speaking Children with Impaired and Typical Language Development

The personal narratives of Spanish-speaking children with typical and impaired language development were compared across several narrative features. Thirty-nine eight- to eleven-year-old children produced narratives in English and in Spanish. Children with typical language development produced longer narratives in both English and in Spanish than children with impaired development. Narratives in Spanish produced by children with typical language development contained more actions and orientation than those produced by the children with language impairment. Significant correlations between the English and Spanish narratives were obtained for number of utterances, orientations, and actions. Bilingual aspects of narration and clinical applications are presented.