title: Comparison of personal versus fictional narratives of children with language impairment.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Personal narratives are common in children's conversations, recommended as the appropriate genre for early writing by educators, and part of many high-stakes tests, possibly because they tend to be better formed than fictional narratives. However, current practice in the field of speech-language pathology employs fictional narratives in assessment, intervention, and study of children with impaired language development. This article explored performance on personal versus fictional narratives by children with language impairment (LI), hypothesizing that performance on the former would be better and a minimal relationship between performances in the 2 genres.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-seven children age 7;0-9;9 (years;months) with LI orally produced personal and fictional narratives (responses to a wordless picture book). Narratives were analyzed by raters blind to experimental hypotheses using high-point analysis and an analysis derived from scoring of a high-stakes composition for 4th grade.
  
  
  RESULTS
  High-point ratings of personal significantly exceeded those of fictional narratives. Disproportionate fictional stories did not meet minimal narrative criteria. However, more personal narratives than would be expected by chance did. The analyses were significantly correlated. Quality of a child's performance of personal was minimally related to that of fictional narratives.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Clinicians may want to consider functional aspects of personal narratives.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 870 Broadway Street, Suite 1, Lowell, MA 01854, USA. allyssa_mccabe@uml.edu
authors.forename: Allyssa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: McCabe
authors.forename: Lynn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bliss
authors.forename: Gabriela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Barra
authors.forename: Maribeth
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bennett
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D005201:Fantasy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D033262:Narration; D013068:Speech Production Measurement