Jumping around and leaving things out: A profile of the narrative abilities of children with specific language impairment

This article investigates the discourse coherence of school-aged children with specific language impairment (SLI). The following dimensions of discourse are analyzed: topic maintenance, event sequencing, explicitness (including referencing), conjunctive cohesion, and fluency. The personal narratives of the children in the experimental group were compared with those produced by two groups of children with normal language development, one group matched by chronological age and the other matched by language level. The narratives of the children with SLI were significantly impaired compared with both control groups with respect to all five dimensions of narration, although impairment was far more pronounced for topic maintenance, event sequencing, and implicitness than it was for conjunctive cohesion or fluency. The former serious impairments place a heavy burden on listeners. Theoretical and clinical implications of the results are discussed.