Why do children with language impairment have difficulties with narrative macrostructure?

BACKGROUND: Research has produced conflicting findings about the effects of language impairment (LI) on narrative macrostructure outcomes.

AIMS: The present study investigated if children with LI perform weaker than typically developing (TD) controls on narrative macrostructure in different tasks, whether this changes over time and if between-group differences stem from linguistic or cognitive factors.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES: A group of monolingual Dutch children with LI (n=84) and a TD control group (n=45) were tested with a story comprehension and a story generation task. All children were five or six at wave 1 and six or seven at wave 2. Information was collected on vocabulary, grammar, verbal memory and sustained attention.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: At wave 1, the LI group performed weaker than the TD group in both tasks. At wave 2, the groups performed similarly on story comprehension. On story generation, the TD group still outperformed the LI group. Sustained attention mediated the relationship between group and story generation.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Effects of LI on narrative macrostructure are moderated by age and task and may stem from sustained attention weaknesses. These findings have implications for using narrative tasks in educational and diagnostic settings and may direct future interventions.