The production of coherent narrative texts by older language impaired children

THE PRODUCTION OF COHERENT NARRATIVE TEXTS BY OLDER LANGUAGE IMPAIRED CHILDREN. S H A R O N T U C H , Β A . (SP. & H. THERAPY) (WITWATERSRAND) Speech Therapy Department, SUMMARY Transvaal Memorial Hospital for Children, Johannesburg. - A group of 4 language-impaired children, 9 years old, and a group of 4 control children with no language problems were compared on an aspect of 'communicative competence' - their ability to produce coherent narrative texts (sequences of sentences) which were semantically coherent and appropriate to the situational context. A test was devised by the writer, comprising stories presented to the children through a number of sensory modalities. The narrative texts elicited from the 2 groups were compared on a number of measures of semantic cohesion and measures of general semantic content (or appropriateness to the situational context). The performance of the languageimpaired children appeared to be inferior to the control group on all the measures of semantic cohesion and general semantic content, supporting the hypothesis that the language-impaired group would perform inferiorly to the control group on an aspect of 'communicative competence'. The implications of the study's findings for the diagnosis and treatment of expressive language problems in the older child were discussed. Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2012) OPSOMMING 'n Groep van 4 9-jarige kinders met taalprobleme is vergelyk met 'n kontrole-groep van 4 kinders ten opsigte van 'n aspek van 'kommunikatiewe vermoe'. Ten einde hierdie aspek te ondersoek is hulle vermoe om saamgestelde verhalende paragrawe te produseer, ontleed. Hierdie paragrawe moes ook toepaslik met betrekking tot die situasie wees. Die ondersoeker het vervolgens 'n toets saamgestel, bestaande uit stories wat deur verskeie sensoriese modaliteite aan die kinders meegedeel is. Die verkree response van beide groepe is vergelyk ten opsigte van 'n aantal maatstawwe van semantiese samehang en maatstawwe van algemene semantiese inhoud (of toepaslikheid tot situasieleidrade). Resultate verkry uit evaluasie van semantiese samehang en semantiese inhoud het getoon dat die groep van kinders met taalprobleme swakker presteer het as die kontrole-groep. Hierdeur word die hipotese, dat kinders met taalprobleme ondergeskik is aan kinders met normale taalontwikkeling ten opsigte van 'kommunikatiewe vermoe', dus gestaaf. Die waarde van bevindinge verkry uit die studie vir die diagnose en behandeling van ekspressiewe taalprobleme in die ouer kind, word vervolgens bespreek. Linguistics has had an increasing influence on work in language pathology over recent years. Currently, diagnosis and treatment of expressive (and receptive) language problems of the child during the initial years of,language acquisition as well as the older child (beyond the first 5 years of language acquisition) has been conducted largely within the linguistic framework of 'grammatical competence' with its emphasis on the grammaticality of single sentences. However, there appears to have been a growing feeling amongst language clinicians that this approach towards diagnosis and treatment of expressive language disorders might not be adequate for expressive language problems in the older child. Whereas the younger child is largely expected to be only 'grammatically competent', the older child should be able to produce The South Africa Journal of Communication Disorders, Vol. 24, 1977 43 Coherent Narrative Texts by Older Children not only single grammatical sentences but coherent sequences of sentences if he wishes to communicate effectively with others in his environment. This ability appears to require both greater linguistic and cognitive skill and might be deficient in older children, who, having passed the period of early language acquisition, may by this time have acquired 'grammatical competence' at the single sentence level. Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2012) Recent developments in modern linguistic theory appear to offer both a conceptual framework as well as a method of analysis with which to evaluate such an ability and to remediate possible deficits in this ability. Growing dissatisfaction expressed by a number of linguists 1 0 , 1 9 with modern linguistic theory's notion of 'grammatical competence' has led to the introduction of (1) a new conceptualisation of 'competence' — 'communicative competence' as well as (2) a method of analysis with which to investigate this new conceptualisation of 'competence' - 'discourse analysis'. Each of these will be considered briefly. Modern linguistic theory, largely based on the generative model of language put forward by Chomsky,4 has recognised that the world of modern linguistics comprises 2 parts — 'linguistic competence' and 'linguistic performance'. 'Linguistic performance' has been conceptualised as the native speakerlistener's actual production and understanding of an indefinite number of isolated context-less grammatical sentences, generally never spoken nor heard before. 'Linguistic competence' has been conceptualised as the set of rules which characterizes the native speaker-listener's abstract, underlying knowledge of his language which permits the 'linguistic performance' discussed above.17 Modern linguistic theory until recently has aimed to concern itself exclusively with the formulation of the rules of this particular conceptualisation of 'competence' which will hence be termed 'grammatical competence'. 13 Criticism has been levelled by certain linguists 10 · 19 against linguistic theory's notion of 'grammatical competence' as this characterization of 'competence' makes possible 'performance' which does not approximate performance in actual speaking situations. In order to communicate effectively with others in his environment, it does not suffice for the listener-speaker to produce (and understand) an indefinite number of isolated sentences. In addition, he must be able to produce (and understand) connected discourse defined by Harris8 as. . . sentences spoken or written in succession by one or more persons in a single situation, these sentences being appropriate to their situational context. In order to account for this ability to produce sentences appropriate to their verbal and situational context, certain linguists 10 · 19 have recognised the need to supplement the restricted notion of 'grammatical competence' with an additional conceptualisation of 'competence' - 'communicative competence' - and 'performance' has been reconceptualised as the actual application of 'communicative' and 'grammatical competence' in real-life speaking situations. 20 As 'communicative competence' involves the ability to produce sentences appropriate to their verbal and situational context, the data used for analysis can no longer be the corpus of isolated context-less sentences used for the investigation of 'grammat (...truncated)