Narrative discourse in young children with histories of early corrective heart surgery

Abstract

Narrative attainment was assessed in a group of 76 four-year-oldhildren at risk for brain injury because of histories of earlyorrective heart surgery. Elicited personal experience narrativesere coded for narrative components, evaluative devices, andnformation adequacy and were contrasted with narratives producedy a comparison group of typically developing 4-year-olds. Theroduction of autonomous narrative discourse was identifieds an area of special vulnerability for children with this medicalistory. Despite considerable heterogeneity in narrative performance,hildren with early corrective heart surgery produced fewerarrative components than typically developing children. Resultsuggest that the elaboration of events and contextual information,he expression of subjective evaluation and causality, and claritynd explicitness of information reporting may constitute specialhallenges for this population of children. Implications ofhese findings for clinical assessment and possible risks forocioemotional relationships and academic achievement are discussed.