Narrative Discourse in Young Children With Histories of Early Corrective Heart Surgery

lowry_hemphill{at}harvard.edu

Narrative attainment was assessed in a group of 76 four-year-old children at risk for brain injury because of histories of early corrective heart surgery. Elicited personal experience narratives were coded for narrative components, evaluative devices, and information adequacy and were contrasted with narratives produced by a comparison group of typically developing 4-year-olds. The production of autonomous narrative discourse was identified as an area of special vulnerability for children with this medical history. Despite considerable heterogeneity in narrative performance, children with early corrective heart surgery produced fewer narrative components than typically developing children. Results suggest that the elaboration of events and contextual information, the expression of subjective evaluation and causality, and clarity and explicitness of information reporting may constitute special challenges for this population of children. Implications of these findings for clinical assessment and possible risks for socioemotional relationships and academic achievement are discussed.

KEY WORDS: narrative, brain injury, young children, heart surgery, discourse

Submitted on March 29, 2001
Accepted on November 29, 2001

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				R. Horton-Ikard Cohesive Adequacy in the Narrative Samples of School-Age Children Who Use African American English Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch, October 1, 2009; 40(4): 393 - 402. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				R. E. Neufeld, B. G. Clark, C. M.T. Robertson, D. M. Moddemann, I. A. Dinu, A. R. Joffe, R. S. Sauve, D. E. Creighton, L. Zwaigenbaum, D. B. Ross, et al. Five-year neurocognitive and health outcomes after the neonatal arterial switch operation J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg., December 1, 2008; 136(6): 1413 - 1421. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. Miatton, D. De Wolf, K. Francois, E. Thiery, and G. Vingerhoets Intellectual, neuropsychological, and behavioral functioning in children with tetralogy of Fallot J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg., February 1, 2007; 133(2): 449 - 455. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				L. M. Justice, R. P. Bowles, J. N. Kaderavek, T. A. Ukrainetz, S. L. Eisenberg, and R. B. Gillam The Index of Narrative Microstructure: A Clinical Tool for Analyzing School-Age Children's Narrative Performances. Am J Speech Lang Pathol, May 1, 2006; 15(2): 177 - 191. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				D. C. Bellinger, D. Wypij, A. J. duPlessis, L. A. Rappaport, R. A. Jonas, G. Wernovsky, and J. W. Newburger Neurodevelopmental status at eight years in children with dextro-transposition of the great arteries: The Boston Circulatory Arrest Trial J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg., November 1, 2003; 126(5): 1385 - 1396. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]