Measurement of Narrative Discourse Ability in Children With Language Disorders
Abstract
Narratives from three studies differing in subject pools, elicitation procedures, and story content were analyzed using seven variables hypothesized to measure a variety of language abilities used in narrative production. Two questions were addressed: (a) To what extent did multiple variables represent common factors? and (b) To what extent did these variables distinguish children with language disorder from their nondisordered peers? Results indicated that: (a) The seven variables represented two factors; Factor I measured global organization of content (i.e., episode structure), and Factor II measured within- and across-sentence structure (i.e., grammatical sentence structure, within subordinate clause productivity, and textual cohesion), and (b) regardless of study, only the variables representing Factor II were selected as the most effective in predicting group membership.
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A large body of research suggests that poor narrative structure can indicate delayed or impaired language in children.
“Indeed, a large body of research suggests that poor narrative structure can indicate delayed or impaired language in children (Liles et al., 1995; Greenhalgh & Strong, 2001; Justice et al., 2006; Gillam et al., 2017; Reilly et al., 2004; Merritt & Liles, 1987; Kaderavek & Sulzby, 2000).”
From Early Identification of Language Disorders Using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning: Challenges and Emerging Approaches (2025) · cites this paper as Liles et al., 1995
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Gillam, S. L., Gillam, R. B., Fargo, J. D., Olszewski, A., & Segura, H. (2017) · Communication Disorders Quarterly · doi:10.1177/1525740116651442 · Cited by 77 · see citing works
DE MARCHENA, A., & EIGSTI, I.-M. (2016) · Journal of Child Language · doi:10.1017/s0305000915000070 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Lammert, J. M., Roberts, A. C., McRae, K., Batterink, L. J., & Butler, B. E. (2025) · Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research · doi:10.1044/2024_jslhr-24-00515 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
- Authors
- Liles, B. Z., Duffy, R. J., Merritt, D. D., & Purcell, S. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Connecticut (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
- Published
- 1995-04
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 415-425
- ISSN
- 1092-4388 (ISSN-L)
- 1558-9102
- OpenAlex
- W2042096475
- Cited by
- 275
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 3.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Connecticut
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Keywords
- narrative discourse, language disorders, children, narrative production, discourse structure, episode structure, subordinate clauses, textual cohesion, language assessment, factor structure
- MeSH terms
- Child, Child Language, Humans, Language Disorders, Language Tests, Linguistics, Speech Production Measurement, Verbal Behavior
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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