The development of narrative skills in monolingual Swedish-speaking children aged 4 to 9: a longitudinal study

Abstract

This longitudinal study investigated the development of oral narrative skills in monolingual Swedish-speaking children (N = 17). The MAIN Cat/Dog stories were administered at four timepoints between age 4 and 9. Different narrative aspects were found to develop differently. In story comprehension, the children performed high already at T1 (4;4) and were at ceiling at T2 (5;10), whereas story structure developed significantly until T4 (9;4). Narrative length and syntactic complexity reached a plateau at T3 (7;4). Referent introduction was not mastered until T4. The results suggest that general conclusions regarding the development of narrative skills depend on the specific aspects studied.