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Telling stories of experiences: Narrative development of young Chinese children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2004

CHIEN-JU CHANG
CHIEN-JU CHANG
Affiliation:
National Taipei Teachers College
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Abstract

This study explores growth in Chinese children's narrative over a 9-month period. Sixteen children (eight boys, eight girls) living in Taipei, Taiwan, participated in this project. The children were visited in the home at ages 3 years 6 months (3;6), 3;9, 4;0, and 4;3 and were prompted to tell personally experienced narratives at each visit. Three dimensions of the child's narrative skills (narrative structure, evaluation, and temporality) were assessed from an individual growth modeling perspective. The results of this study suggest that Chinese children, generally speaking, include more narrative components, evaluative information, and temporal markers in their narratives over time. However, the growth patterns and rates of change for each child on each narrative measure vary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 83 - 104
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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