title: Conversational and narrative speaking in adolescents: examining the use of complex syntax.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Few tools are available to examine the narrative speaking ability of adolescents. Hence, the authors designed a new narrative task and sought to determine whether it would elicit a higher level of syntactic complexity than a conversational task in adolescents with typical language development.
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty adolescents (Mage = 14;0 [years;months]; 20 boys and 20 girls) were individually interviewed. Each adolescent participated in a standard conversational task followed by a narrative task that involved listening to fables and retelling the stories. It was predicted that the narrative task would elicit a higher level of syntactic complexity than the conversational task because fables, although superficially simple stories, express rather sophisticated meanings.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The narrative task elicited greater syntactic complexity than the conversational task as measured by mean length of C-unit and clausal density. Additionally, the 2 syntactic measures, mean length of C-unit and clausal density, were closely associated on both tasks.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Fables can elicit a high level of syntactic complexity in adolescents with typical language development. Future studies are needed to build a normative database using fables.
authors.forename: Marilyn A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Nippold
authors.forename: Megan W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Frantz-Kaspar
authors.forename: Paige M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Cramond
authors.forename: Cecilia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kirk
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hayward-Mayhew
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: MacKinnon
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D041923:Adolescent Development; D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D033262:Narration; D012660:Semantics; D013060:Speech; D014705:Verbal Behavior