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Comparing fictional, personal, and hypothetical narratives in primary school: story grammar and mental state language

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Abstract

The present study examined the use of narrative categories and mental state words in the fictional, personal, and hypothetical stories written by 150 children in the third, fourth, and fifth grades of primary school. There were three main results. First, children were better able to write fictional and hypothetical than personal stories, when considering the total number of narrative categories and the percentages of stories including at least one complete episode. Second, there was clear evidence of differentiation between the three tasks, both in terms of narrative categories and mental state language. Third, the use of mental state words correlated with the frequency of subordinate propositions and the number of narrative categories included in the stories. These findings support the hypothesis of a bidirectional interaction between lexical and syntactic development and suggest that narrative writing involves metalinguistic abilities directly related to the spontaneous use of psychological lexicon. Educational implications are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, University Sapienza of Rome, Italy, Via degli Apuli 1, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Emiddia Longobardi & Marialuisa Renna

  2. Department of Psychology, University Sapienza of Rome, Italy, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Pietro Spataro & Clelia Rossi-Arnaud

Authors
  1. Emiddia Longobardi
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  2. Pietro Spataro
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  3. Marialuisa Renna
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  4. Clelia Rossi-Arnaud
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Correspondence to Emiddia Longobardi.

Additional information

Emiddia Longobardi. University Sapienza of Rome, Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, Via degli Apuli 1, 00185, Rome (Italy).

Current themes of research:

Language development. Gestural communication. Pragmatic abilities. Adult-child interaction. Text composition. Language assessment. Theory of mind.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Iverson, J. M., Longobardi, E., Spampinato, K., Caselli, M. C. (2006). Gesture and speech in maternal input to children with Down Syndrome. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 3, 235–251.

Longobardi, E., Rossi-Arnaud, C., Spataro, P. A. (2011). Longitudinal examination of early communicative development: evidence from a parent report questionnaire. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 29 (3), 572–592.

Longobardi, E., Rossi-Arnaud, C., Spataro, P. (2012). Individual differences in the prevalence of words and gestures in the second year of life: developmental trends in Italian children. Infant Behavior & Development, 35, 847–859.

Pietro Spataro. University Sapienza of Rome, Department of Psychology, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185, Rome (Italy).

Current themes of research:

Implicit memory. Working memory. Attention. Language development.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Spataro, P., Mulligan, N. W., Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2013). Divided attention can enhance memory encoding: the attentional boost effect in implicit memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (in press).

Spataro, P., Longobardi, E., Saraulli, D., Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2013). Interactive effects of age-of-acquisition and repetition priming in the lexical decision task: a multiple loci account. Experimental Psychology, 60, 235–242.

Spataro, P., Mulligan, N. W., Longobardi, E., Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2012). Effects of age of acquisition in the word fragment completion task: evidence for an orthographiclocus in implicit memory. Experimental Psychology, 59, 22–29.

Marialuisa Renna. University Sapienza of Rome, Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, Via degli Apuli 1, 00185, Rome (Italy).

Current themes of research:

Language development. Risk conditions for language development. Text composition.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Longobardi, E., Renna, M., Rinaldi, P., Devescovi, A. (2010). Uno studio longitudinale sullo sviluppo linguistico dibambini gemellies in golinatinel secondo anno divita [A longitudinal examination of language development in twin and singlet on children during the second year of life]. Et à Evolutiva, 3, 65–79.

Longobardi, E., Renna, M. (2010). Riferimenti a stati interni nell’ input rivolto a bambin icon ritardo mentale e con sviluppo tipico [Mental state talk addressed to children with mental delay and with typical development]. Psichiatria dell ’Infanziae dell ’Adolescenza, 77, 87–97.

Clelia Rossi-Arnaud. University Sapienza of Rome, Department of Psychology, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185, Rome (Italy).

Current themes of research:

Working memory. Gestures. Binding. Suggestibility. Theory of mind.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Hünefeldt, T., Rossi-Arnaud, C., Furia, A. (2009). Effects of in formation type on children’s interrogative suggestibility: is theory-of-mind involved? Cognitive processing, 10, 199–207.

Rossi-Arnaud, C., Pieroni, L., Spataro, P., Baddeley, A. (2012). Working memory and individual differences in the encoding of vertical, horizontal and diagonal symmetry. Acta Psychologica, 141, 122–132.

Rossi-Arnaud, C., Spataro, P., Longobardi, E. (2012). Effects of pointing on the recall of simultaneous and sequential visuospatial arrays: a role for retrieval strategies? Psychological Research, 76, 699–712.

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Longobardi, E., Spataro, P., Renna, M. et al. Comparing fictional, personal, and hypothetical narratives in primary school: story grammar and mental state language. Eur J Psychol Educ 29, 257–275 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-013-0197-y

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