Evidence Based Narrative Interventions via Use of Picture Books

Narrative difficulties in children are indicative of social communication as well as academic deficits. Narrative interventions with a focus on improving microstructural and macrostructural abilities can significantly improve the students’ functioning in the areas of oral language, reading, and writing. This 50 slide presentation describes specific narrative intervention targets based on narrative stages. It discusses the hierarchy of narrative intervention targets (listening comprehension, macrostructure, microstructure, perspective taking, etc.) as well as illustrate where the learners can find and adapt a variety of free/low-cost materials for narrative intervention purposes.

Learning objectives:

◦By the end of this presentation participants will be able to

1. Discuss current findings on narrative research
2. Explain the impact of narrative interventions on academic performance
3. List components of effective narrative instruction
4. Identify specific narrative intervention targets with respect to macro and microstructural elements
5. Explain how to incorporate components of narrative instruction into speech-language therapy sessions

Slide Content:

• Oral Language Competence
• Choosing an Intervention Approach
• Contextualized (CLI) vs. Decontextualized (DLI) Interventions
• Narrative Abilities and Reading Development
• Narrative Development
• Narratives and Children with DLD
• Why Teach Narratives
• Narrative Interventions and Academic Performance
• Effectiveness of Narrative Interventions
• Effectiveness of Narrative Interventions: Special Populations
• Effective Narrative Interventions
• A Word on Early Narratives
• Narrative Intervention Goal Targets
• Macrostructure vs. Microstructure
• Stages of Narrative Intervention
• Story Grammar Chart
  • Story Grammar: Setting (Hedberg & Westby, 1993 )
  • Story Grammar: Initiating Event (Hedberg & Westby, 1993 )
  • Story Grammar: Reaction (Hedberg & Westby, 1993)
  • Story Grammar: Attempt and Consequences (Hedberg & Westby, 1993 )
  • Story Grammar: Resolution/Reaction & Ending (Hedberg & Westby, 1993 )
• Story Grammar Visuals
• Teaching Story Grammar
• Where Do We Start?
• Questions to Build Vocabulary and Simple Sentence Structure
• Questions to Build Knowledge of Characters and Settings
• Questions to Improve Sequencing Abilities for Retelling Purposes
• Questions to Improve Verbal Reasoning  Abilities for Retelling Purposes
• Questions to Improve Social Cognition for Retelling Purposes
• Building Basic Retelling Skills
• Prior to Shifting to Story Elaboration
• What Makes a Narrative Linguistically Sophisticated?
• Building Elaboration: Focus on Microstructure
• Building Elaboration
• Select Studies Detailing How to Build Microstructure
• Teaching Elaborated Noun Phrases
• Teaching Metalinguistic and Metacognitive Words
• Use of Mental Verbs by Age (Egoz Liebstein 2010)
• Common Mental and Linguistic Verbs
• Teaching Cohesive Ties
• Discourse Cohesion (Ukrainetz, 2012)
• Free Resources for Teaching Conjunctions
• Teaching Temporal Markers and Adverbs
• Teaching Polysemous Words and Homographs
• Teaching Dialogue
• Conclusion
• Helpful Related Smart Speech Therapy Materials