Second Graders' Verbal Academic Summaries:
Feasibility Study
Hope S. Lancaster  C. Melanie Schuele "
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
INTRODUCTION
Narratives are the temporal organization of events, real or
imagined, that occur through the use of specific linguistic and
structural features. To create an adequate narrative, a narrator has
to use social, cognitive, and linguistic skills. Narrative skills have
been linked to academic achievement (Feagans & Applebaum,
1986). Children with good narrative skills do better academically
than children with poor narrative skills regardless of whether their
language skills are poor (Feagans & Applebaum, 1986). Two
domains of academic skills have been examined in relation to
narrative skills: mathematics and reading. Early narrative skills,
such as perspective shifting and event content, of typical children
between 3 and 7 years old predict math performance on ageappropriate tasks of knowledge of math concepts and application
(Feagans & Applebaum, 1986; O’Neill et al., 2004). Reading
comprehension is also predicted by early narrative skills (e.g.
marking significant events and narrative quality) of typical children
between 5- and 7-years old (Feagans & Applebaum, 1986; Griffin,
Hemphill, Camp, & Wolf, 2004; Sulzby & Zecker, 1991).
Narrative language is a significant part of academic performance;
specifically narrative ability can predict academic performance
regardless of a child’s overall language ability (Feagans &
Applebaum, 1986). Both children with SLI and NLI show weakness
in narrative language, however the weaknesses are not identical
(Fey, Catts, Proctor-Williams, Tomblin, & Zhang. 2004; Finestack,
Fey, & Catts, 2006; Nippold et al., 2008).
Currently there is a gap in the literature about how children with SLI
and NLI differ for narrative language tasks that are more classroom
based, like book summaries. The body of research that has
compared children with SLI and NLI has focused on fictional
narrative skills, like story retells and story generation. This project
will use a task that requires the child to summarize information,
instead of the listing of events that occurs during story retells. If
complete profiles are to be established so that evidence-based
practices can be derived, then researchers need to examine a
variety of different narrative styles.
The larger project focuses on the relation between academics and
narratives in children with LI. Therefore, a narrative task that is
more academic will be used. Scott and Windsor (2000) developed
an academic summary task based on skills that are needed to
complete classroom tasks. However, Scott and Windsor did not
explore how nonverbal IQ may affect a child’s ability to complete an
academic summary.
Prior to beginning the larger project, feasibility data is needed for
the academic summary task design. The academic summary tasks
that will be used in this project are guided by Scott and Windsor
(2000), but have been modified for a younger age group. Further,
there are no previous studies that examine how children with typical
or atypical language in the second grade perform on academic
summary tasks. The feasibility data will be collected using typical
children to guide hypotheses on how children with SLI and NLI will
perform in the larger study.
PURPOSE
There are two purposes for this poster:
To assess the feasibility of study methods.
To demonstrate through data how typical children
perform so as to make predictions for how children with
specific and non-specific language impairment will
perform.
METHODS
Participants completed 6 norm-referenced tests and 2 academic
summary tasks.
The academic summary task design was guided by Scott and Windsor
(2000).
The academic summaries were elicited using the following procedures
in the order described. All of the books were placed on the table within
sight of the child and the experimenter read the books.
1.  Model:
Purpose is to introduce the child to what a book report is and
demonstrate what the child should do.
Experimenter says:
I’m going to read this book to you and do a book report
about it. I’m going to do the book report as if I was telling
my teacher. I’m only going to talk about the important parts
and the parts I thought were really cool. After we do this it
will be your turn to do some book reports. Ok?
Experimenter then completes a summary.
2. Narrative and Expository summaries:
Introduction
Today I am going to read you two books. This book is title of
book. Listen carefully, because after the book we are going
to do an activity that uses the book. Ready? Wait for child
response.
Elicitation:
I want you to complete a book report for your teacher. We
are going to record it for your teacher. A book report is a
retelling of the book we just read. You have five minutes to
finish your book report and you need to try and talk for all
five minutes. Are you ready? Wait for child response. Ok let’s
set the timer. Set timer for five minutes and show child.
During summary:
1. If the child had trouble starting, experimenter encourages them:
Just tell me what you remember.
2. Allowable prompts were:
Oh, How interesting, Tell me more, and Mhm
3. When child indicated they were done, experimenter asked:
Is there anything you would like to add to your book report?
What was your favorite part?
What was the most important part?
PARTICIPANTS
Descriptors RELIABILITY PROCESS:
The first author and a second coder coded all samples. Then
they meet to come to consensus. After final transcripts were
created, a third coder checked coding. The third coder was
above 90% agreement with the first and second coders
Luke Narrative
Luke
7;9 8;5 7;9 Gender Boy Boy Boy Vader
TOLD-­‐P:3 SLQ 125 91 111 Yoda
C she got her shot and scream/ed so loud it hurt doctor reed/z ears [cs]
[cc] [nrc] [3c] [gc] [gc] [gc].
C and once (the) the shot (is is) is into her (ba) body she scream/3s (so)
so loud that it (fr*) frighten/3s everyone [cs] [sc] [rc] [3c] [gc] [gc] [gc].
c (um it was) it was about how if you scream really loud you don’t even
feel a thing [p:mhm] :03 and (that you don’t) that it/’s loud [cs] [sc] [nrc]
[other] [4c] [gc] [gc] [gc] [gc].
TONI-­‐3 110 92 95 PPVT-­‐4 148 104 119 Expository
Word Test 2 Total 123 108 119 Luke
WRMT-­‐R: Word ID 128 108 120 WRMT-­‐R: Word aMack 117 104 c and there is a vent at the top which lets it come down [cs] [src] [uic] [3c]
[gc] [gc] [gc].
Vader
C there was a volcano that explode/ed in Hawaii from [err] 1998 [cs] [src]
[2c] [gc] [ugc].
119 Yoda
Notes: TOLD-P:3 (Newcomer & Hammill, 1997) = Test of Language Development-Primary 3; TONI 3 (Brown,
Sherbenou, & Johnson, 1997) = Test of Nonverbal Intelligence; PPVT-4 (Dunn & Dunn, 2007) = Peabody
Picture Vocabulary Test; Word Test 2 (Bowers, Huisingh, Logiudice, & Orman, 2004); WJ-A (Mather &
Woodcock2001) = Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement; WJ-C (Mather & Woodcock, 2001) =
Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Ability; WRMT (Woodcock, 1998) = Woodcock Reading Mastery Test
Revised.
RESULTS
Yoda Vader Luke 6.41 8.07 7.30 15 15 23 Clausal density 0.24 0.27 0.26 Clauses per T-­‐unit 1.35 1.4 1.26 Percent grammaVcal clauses 100% 90.48% 93.75% Errors per T-­‐unit 0 0.13 0.18 Number different words 42 59 74 Total Vme 1:01 1:19 1:21 T-­‐units per minute 0.28 0.19 0.28 29.41% 93.33% 30.43% Mean length T-­‐unit Total T-­‐units Percent T-­‐units with mazes Expository summaries
Book:
Eruption! The story of
volcanoes (Ganeri, 2001)
Yoda Vader Luke 7.11 5.75 6.43 18 16 14 Clausal density 0.22 0.19 0.14 Clauses per T-­‐unit 1.33 1.19 1.14 Mean length T-­‐unit Total T-­‐units Percent grammaVcal clauses 79% 94.74% 93.75% Errors per T-­‐unit 0.22 0.06 0.07 Number different words 58 46 55 Total Vme 1:18 1:50 1:00 T-­‐units per minute 0.23 0.15 0.23 44.44% 50% 42.86% Percent T-­‐units with mazes C it talk/ed about *a volcano *that erupteded [err] in 79 ad and destroyed
a roman city called Pompeii. [cs] [nrc] [cc] [pc] [4c] [ugc] [ugc] [gc] [gc]
CONCLUSIONS
Methodological:
Narrative summaries
Book:
The Scream (Blackaby, 2009)
TRANSCRIPTION PROCESS:
All samples were coded using SALT conventions (Howe, 1992).
CODING PROCESS:
Utterance were divided using T-unit conversions.
Samples were coded for number of clauses, grammaticality of clauses,
mazes, and errors. Coding for clauses was based on Schuele (2009).
Vader Excerpts
Age (years; month) TRANSCRIPTION
RELIABILITY PROCESS:
The first author transcribed all samples. A second transcriber
checked all samples.
Yoda RESULTS
Based on the data collected there are several issues to address in the
study methods prior to data collection. The issues that need to be
addressed are:
1. Directions for obtaining summaries needs to be changed.
2. Questions after summaries need to be changed to elicit more
language.
We will address these issues in the following ways:
•  Simplify language in instructions to mirror the model task more
closely.
•  Make reference to the model task when giving instruction for the
experimental task.
•  Reduce required time for summaries to 3 minutes.
•  Use a visual aid to help children keep track of time (e.g. sand
falling; timer rotating).
•  Write new post summary questions for each book.
Predictions:
Based on the data collected some preliminary predictions for how
children with SLI and NLI will perform are:
•  They will have lower scores for most derived measures, with the
exception for mazes
•  They will continue to exhibit the trend for lower scores on
measures for the expository summary than narrative summary.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was supported by a Preparation of Leadership Personnel
grant (H325D080075; PI: Schuele) US Department of Education. The
authors also acknowledge the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for printing
and support.
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not
necessarily represent the views of Vanderbilt University.
Poster Presented at the 2012 Convention of the American Hearing
and Speech Association, Atlanta, GA.
References available upon request: languagelab@vanderbilt.edu
Poster available at: www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/languagelab