The aim of this paper is to compare speech and co-speech gestures observed during a narrative retelling task in five- and ten-year-old children from three different linguistic groups, French, American, and Italian, in order to better understand the role of age and language in the development of multimodal monologue discourse abilities. We asked 98…

This paper provides information concerning preschool narrative development in typically developing North American children, stressing previously documented links between early narrative skills and literacy development. Methods are provided for assessing narrative skills of language-impaired children. The methods involve eliciting from the children…

A study examined the concept of the universality or the cultural specificity of the ideal story structure using the J. M. Mandler and N. S. Johnson story grammar. Specifically, the study tested the effect of two different story structures, one a conventional fairy tale and the other a Cree Indian narrative, on the recall of Cree Indian children.…

After describing the principles of culturally compatible education, the characteristics of Native American and mainstream narrative discourse are compared, and teaching the structure, content, and style of mainstream narratives is advocated. A program designed to facilitate Native American elementary school children's abilities to comprehend and…