Construction of an instrument for the assessment of children's narrative discourse

FRANCO ACCINELLI, AILÍN PAULA

Berlín

Congreso; Studentische Tagung Sprachwissenschaft (StuTS); 2020

Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin y Universität Potsdam

We propose the construction of an instrument to asses narrative discourse abilities in 3 to 5 year-old children. Previous studies have shown the relevance of narrative discourse for cognitive development, socialization and schooling. The few instruments designed for its evaluation contemplate the comprehension and production of fictional narratives in English-speaking population. However, the narratives produced by Spanish-speaking children do not have the same features. Although some instruments were designed to evaluate the comprehension of fictional narratives in Spanish-speaking children, the development of the structural complexity of personal narratives takes place earlier; that is why it is important to construct an instrument for its assessment.Specific purposes: to analyze and describe the macro and microstructural characteristics of the narratives of personal experiences produced by 3, 4 and 5 year-old children from different sociocultural groups; to build an empirical scale; to analyze the validity, reliability and internal consistency of the instrument; to document the performance of 150 children.Method. The project adopts a quasi-experimental, transversal design. The corpus includes narratives of past experiences produced by 60 children of 3, 4 and 5 years old from different social groups. We will administrate the PLS5 test (Zimmerman et al., 2012) that assess language comprehension and production skills. Data also includes 300 personal narratives produced by 3, 4 and 5 year-old children. The narratives will be audio-recorded and transcribed according to the CHAT format. The analysis will consider their macro- structural and microstructural features. The reliability and validity of the instrument will be analyzed.