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 w ith specific language impairment (SLI). The following dimensions of discour se are analyzed: topic maintenance, event sequencing, explicitness (includi ng referencing), conjunctive cohesion, and fluency. The personal narratives of the children in the experimental group were compared with those produce d by two groups of children with normal language development, one group mat ched by chronological age and the other matched by language level. The narr atives of the children with SLI were significantly impaired compared with b oth control groups with respect to all five dimensions of narration, althou gh impairment was far more pronounced for topic maintenance, event sequenci ng, and implicitness than it was for conjunctive cohesion or fluency. The f ormer serious impairments place a heavy burden on listeners. Theoretical an d clinical implications of the results are discussed.