Narrative discourse in young children with histories of early corrective heart surgery
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Date
2002-04-01
Authors
Hemphill, L., Uccelli, P., Winner, K., Chang, C., & Bellinger, D.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Abstract
Narrative attainment was assessed in a group of 76 four-year-oldhildren at risk for brain injury because of histories of earlyorrective heart surgery. Elicited personal experience narrativesere coded for narrative components, evaluative devices, andnformation adequacy and were contrasted with narratives producedy a comparison group of typically developing 4-year-olds. Theroduction of autonomous narrative discourse was identifieds an area of special vulnerability for children with this medicalistory. Despite considerable heterogeneity in narrative performance,hildren with early corrective heart surgery produced fewerarrative components than typically developing children. Resultsuggest that the elaboration of events and contextual information,he expression of subjective evaluation and causality, and claritynd explicitness of information reporting may constitute specialhallenges for this population of children. Implications ofhese findings for clinical assessment and possible risks forocioemotional relationships and academic achievement are discussed.