Exploring Narrative Skill Differences in Monolingual and Bilingual Children with Developmental Language Disorder

Abstract

This study investigated differences in narrative skills between monolingual and Farsi English bilingual children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). The research explored whether bilingualism influences the macrostructure (narrative coherence), microstructure (sentence complexity and lexical diversity), and artfulness (expressive elaboration) of children’s storytelling. Twenty children aged five to seven years, who had been diagnosed with DLD participated. Participants were categorized as monolingual (n = 10) or bilingual (n = 10) based on parent responses on the Language Exposure Assessment Tool (LEAT). A pilot study was first conducted to develop and validate the Narrative Artfulness Questionnaire (NAQ), which measures listeners’ perceptions of narrative creativity and expressiveness. In the main study, children’s story retells were collected using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) and analyzed for structural and expressive components. Quantitative analyses compared children’s performance across multiple narrative measures: macrostructure (Main Score, AO, G, GA/GO, GAO), microstructure (MLU-W, MLU-M, NTW, NDW, TTR), and artfulness (total NAQ score). Analyses revealed no statistically significant differences between bilingual children with DLD and their monolingual peers on any measures of narrative macrostructure and microstructure. However, on the NAQ there was a statistically significant difference between groups, indicating that bilingual participants produced more expressive narratives, and suggesting strengths in narrative artfulness. These results are consistent with research indicating that bilingualism does not negatively affect the structural aspects of narrative production in children with DLD, and suggest that it may be associated with enhanced expressive and creative dimensions of storytelling. The study offers implications for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and educators, emphasizing the importance of supporting both languages in intervention and highlighting directions for future research on bilingual narrative assessment.