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Tell Me a Story: A Review of Narrative Assessments for Preschoolers
Article in Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal · October 2007
DOI: 10.1007/s10560-007-0095-8
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Child Adolesc Soc Work J (2007) 24:455–475
DOI 10.1007/s10560-007-0095-8
Tell Me a Story: A Review of Narrative Assessments
for Preschoolers
Joanna E. Bettmann Æ Brad W. Lundahl
Published online: 11 September 2007
Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract The use of narrative assessments in mental health research with young
children has increased significantly over the last 15 years. This article reviews 13
empirically validated narrative assessments for preschool populations. The reviewed
instruments assess children’s attachment relationships, moral values, separation
anxiety, pro-social behavior, object relations and depression, among other constructs. The authors present an analysis of each instrument including a discussion of
its methodological rigor, and point to needed directions in the field. These narrative
assessment instruments provide researchers and clinicians with insight into the
internal worlds of young children, offering windows into a difficult-to-assess
population.
Keywords
Narrative Preschool Attachment
Children typically have rich internal worlds that organize current experiences and
reflect past experiences (Stern 1985), but they are just beginning to develop words
for their emotions and lack sophisticated self-reflection capabilities (Emde 2003).
Seminal research conducted by Bowlby (1940, 1944, 1958) and Ainsworth (1970,
1972) demonstrated that young children form mental schema about interpersonal
relationships based on history. These schema of one’s social world are relatively
stable (Hamilton 2000) and are related to social functioning and mental health
(Kobak 1999).
Despite strong consensus that children develop and act based on their internal
relational models (Stern 1985), researchers still find it difficult to measure children’s
internal worlds. While methods of assessing young children’s relational models
J. E. Bettmann (&) B. W. Lundahl
University of Utah College of Social Work, 395 South 1500 East, Rm. 101, Salt Lake City,
UT 84112, USA
e-mail: Joanna.Bettmann@socwk.utah.edu
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J. E. Bettmann, B. W. Lundahl
exist and demonstrate strong construct validity (Solomon and George 1999), many
of these are loosely structured and have not been manualized or normed (Cassidy
1988; Oppenheim et al. 1996). Thus, study replication becomes difficult or
impossible.
The Strange Situation (Ainsworth et al. 1978) is an observational instrument for
children up to 3 years which has been both normed and manualized. The Strange
Situation allows researchers to classify toddlers’ attachment styles, believed to
reflect their internal relational worlds. For adolescent and adult populations,
interview and projective attachment measures elicit verbal responses in regards to
important relationships. Many of these instruments demonstrate significant
construct validity and reliability in research (Crowell et al. 1999).
Children between 3 and 10 years present a special challenge for attachment
researchers. First, children at this age no longer respond to the Strange Situation in
the same manner because they have developed sufficient verbal skills to
communicate their feelings about separations and reunions. Second, the verbal
and written skills of young children are not sufficiently developed to respond to
the verbal attachment interviews and written attachment instruments used with
adolescents and adults.
To respond to this dilemma, researchers have attempted to assess young
children’s internal working models using narratives elicited through pictures, story
stems, dolls, and puppets. These narrative assessment tools bridge the gap between
behavioral observations, such as the Strange Situation, and strictly verbal interviews
(Solomon and George 1999). In the Strange Situation, toddlers act out their internal
worlds through behavior. The Adult Attachment Interview (George et al. 1984)
relies on the verbal skills of its participants to detail early memories of relationships.
These memory narratives allow researchers to draw conclusions about subjects’
relational worlds. Preschool children between the ages of 3 and 5 have sufficient
verbal skills to describe their worlds so that simple behavioral observation is no
longer the only type of measurement available. However, children in this age range
do not possess the verbal sophistication to respond to the Adult Attachment
Interview or other interview protocols of this nature. Narrative assessments fill this
void by providing a means of gathering data to make inferences about the internal
worlds of children who are too old to participate in the Strange Situation and too
young to participate in verbal instruments that require considerable reflection.
Researchers have developed a number of narrative instruments to assess a variety
of constructs such as attachment, self-esteem, family relationships, moral rules and
competence (Bretherton et al. 1990b, c; Denham et al. 1990; Hodges et al. 2003a).
Previous review of narrative assessment instruments has focused more narrowly on
measures which assess children’s perceptions of social behavior or experience and
focused on instruments’ themes rather than their rigor (Page 2001b). Our review
sought to survey, compare and contrast these narrative assessment instruments
designed to assess young children’s internal working models. Several questions
guided this inquiry. The first of these was: what narrative instruments exist to assess
young children’s internal worlds? Our second question was: what strengths and
limitations exist in the field of narrative assessments for children’s internal worlds?
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A Review of Narrative Assessments
457
Our review describes a range of narrative assessment instruments, the constructs
they assess, and the rigor with which they can be applied.
Methods
Selection of Narrative Assessments
We used two methods to identify potential narrative assessments: computer searches
of major databases and hand searches of the reference sections from identified
articles. The computer searches were conducted in October of 2005 and contained
the following terms: ‘‘narrative,’’ ‘‘assessment,’’ and ‘‘child.’’ The following
databases were searched: EBSCO Academic Search Premier, PsycINFO, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, and PsycArticles. This strategy resulted in
a total of 160 abstracts. Next, these abstracts were prescreened for inclusion based
on four criteria: (a) target population was preschool-aged children (i.e., between 2
and 6 years of age), (b) published in a peer-reviewed journal (e.g., no dissertations
or books), (c) published in English, and (d) utilized a narrative assessment to assess
children’s mental health. In cases where abstracts did not provide information
germane to the above criteria, a conservative approach was used wherein the article
was secured and coded. This prescreening strategy resulted in 53 articles which
were secured and reviewed to determine if a narrative assessment measure was
used. Of the rejected articles, many investigated narratives to assess language skills
or educational achievement while others focused on narrative assessments of older
populations. The inter-rater reliability of the prescreening was adequate, .78.
Incidents of disagreement were resolved through reviewing the abstract. Hand
searches of secured articles involved examining the titles of articles listed in the
reference section; this strategy resulted in 19 more studies reviewed.
Coding of Narrative Assessment Instruments
Three broad dimensions guided the coding of narrative assessment instruments:
constructs assessed, administration procedures, and sample characteristics. In
coding for the constructs assessed by a narrative assessment, we identified those
constructs put forth by the authors rather than making post-hoc judgments about
what constructs we believed were being assessed. For example, some narrative
assessments using story stems examined attachment, while others using similar
stems looked at moral development and prosocial behavior.
Several variables related to administrative procedures were recorded, including
the stimulus used to generate narratives, how many narratives were elicited, and
whether specialized training was required to administer or score the responses. We
also coded information that may inform future researchers’ decisions about adopting
a particular instrument. For example, we coded the populations targeted by a study,
such as children struggling with depression. We also coded children’s ages and how
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J. E. Bettmann, B. W. Lundahl
large the sample was, assuming that larger samples would provide more stable
outcomes.
Two narrative instruments that appeared to assess representations of children’s
internal worlds were excluded from our review because they investigated other
aspects of human functioning. These are the Frog Book (Oppenheim et al. 1996)
and the Chapman Story Stems (Chapman et al. 1987). The Frog Book elicits
narratives through pictures. However, the Frog Book assesses how effectively
parents guide their children through a task and how parents and children interact
rather than focusing on children’s internal worlds. The Chapman Story Stems
(Chapman et al. 1987) consist of eight stories of one or more people engaged in
activities. The child is then asked to predict what the person might be thinking or
feeling. This instrument primarily assesses preschoolers’ abilities to take others’
perspectives and empathize. While these constructs are likely related to children’s
internal representations of the world, this instrument does not explicitly assess
internal representations and is at best an indirect measure of such.
Findings
The authors’ search yielded 13 narrative assessment instruments meeting the review
parameters. Table 1 presents these instruments. Some instruments assess attachment, family relationships or object relations while others examine peer likeability,
moral rules or the impact of maternal depression. All instruments used a stimulus to
draw information from children; these stimuli consisted of story stems, dolls,
puppets, or some combination of these. Story stem completion tasks ask children to
finish a story that is presented by an interviewer. Most story stems contain a
dilemma, as in the Attachment Story Completion Task (Bretherton et al. 1990c). In
the Attachment Story Completion Task, one story stem presents the dilemma of a
child spilling juice at the dinner table, while another presents the dilemma of a
young child who falls and hurts his knee while on a walk with his family. All
stimuli, whether story stems or dolls, ask children to finish a narrative about a
particular scenario. Each instrument is reviewed below.
MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB)
The MacArthur Story Stem Battery uses 14 story stems to elicit children’s narratives
(Bretherton and Oppenheim 2003; Bretherton et al. 1990a, b). This is by far the
most widely used narrative assessment instrument for young children (Buchsbaum
and Emde 1990; Buchsbaum et al. 1992; Hodges and Steele 2000; Hodges et al.
2000, 2002, 2003b; Kochanska et al. 1996; Koren-Karie et al. 2004; Macfie et al.
1999; Oppenheim et al. 1997a, b, c; Ramos-Marcuse and Arsenio 2001; Robinson
et al. 1992, 1996, 2000; Sher-Censor and Oppenheim 2004; Solomon et al. 1995;
Steele et al. 1999, 2003; Toth et al. 1997, 2000a, 2000b; Warren et al. 1996;
Wilkens 2002; Woolgar et al. 2001; Zahn-Waxler et al. 1996). Some of the MSSB
stems are common to the Attachment Story Completion Task (Bretherton et al.
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1. Family relationships
(parent–child, marital and
peer conflict, parent–child
attachment)
MSSB
Separation anxiety (8 indices):
SAT
8. Ratio of appropriate actions
7. Disturbed responses
6. Loss of self-esteem
responses
5. Avoidant responses
4. Anxiety ratio
3. Hostile responses vs. anxious
responses
2. Hostile responses vs.
attachment-type responses
1. Attachment type responses to
severe situation vs. selfreliant responses to mild
situations
Secure & insecure attachment
ASCT
4. Competence (pride)
3. Moral emotions (guilt,
shame, empathy)
2. Moral rules (do’s & don’ts)
Constructs assessed
Measure
Table 1 Narrative assessment instruments
SS (pictures)
6
6
14
C
C
# of story
stems
Stimulus: story stem
(SS), dolls (D),
combo (C)
54–66 mos.
3-year-old
3- to 5-year-old
Age
S
S
M
Manualized (M),
Structured (S)
Unstated
Unstated
No
Specialized
training for
administration
& scoring
A Review of Narrative Assessments
459
123
123
EKI
Security of attachment
(mother–child interaction)
3 dimensions measured:
ADI
4. Peer competence
3. Knowledge of emotions
2. Aggressive behavior
1. Pro-social behavior
Likeability as measured by:
3. Quality of mother–child
interaction presented in
story-completions
2. Child’s ability to generate
constructive resolutions for
separation & stressful
situations
1. Child’s ability to talk
openly about emotionally
charged themes
Constructs assessed
Measure
Table 1 continued
20
6
C
D (puppets)
# of story
stems
Stimulus: story stem
(SS), dolls (D),
combo (C)
33–56 mos.
35–58 mos.
Age
Unstated
Unstated
Manualized (M),
Structured (S)
Unstated
Yes
Specialized
training for
administration
& scoring
460
J. E. Bettmann, B. W. Lundahl
Influence of experiences
(such as maternal
depression) on the child’s
representation of the
family in terms of:
DHP
Child’s representation of
family systems as affected
by marital conflict and
parenting style
Child’s mental representation
of attachment relationships
Depression as it affects play
behavior
FAST
MCAST
PN
5. Narrative structure:
enactment & verbal
articulation of play,
coherence, overall
narrative structure
4. Caregiving by the child
3. Hostility: hostile control,
unprovoked aggressive
behavior
2. Neglect: objective neglect,
explicit neglect, lax control
1. Care: personal care,
practical care, protection
Constructs assessed
Measure
Table 1 continued
C
C
6
6
12
4
C
C
# of story
stems
Stimulus: story stem
(SS), dolls (D),
combo (C)
36–73 mos.
5.2- to 7.7-year-old
5- to 8-year-old
5-year-old
Age
Unstated
S
S
Unstated
Manualized (M),
Structured (S)
Yes
Unstated
Unstated
Unstated
Specialized
training for
administration
& scoring
A Review of Narrative Assessments
461
123
Constructs assessed
Development of object
representations (parental
representations)
The mental representation of
self in relation to
attachment
Connection between
attachment and self-esteem
Child’s representation of self
and family
Measure
CT
IDS
PI
BP
Table 1 continued
123
C
D (Hand puppet)
C
SS (pictures)
Stimulus: story stem
(SS), dolls (D),
combo (C)
6
20 questions
6
6
# of story
stems
4- to 6-year-old
5.7- to 6.8-year-old
5.7- to 6.8-year-old
5- to 10-year-old;
9- to 10-year-olds
Age
S
Unstated
S
Unstated
Manualized (M),
Structured (S)
Unstated
Unstated
Yes
Unstated
Specialized
training for
administration
& scoring
462
J. E. Bettmann, B. W. Lundahl
A Review of Narrative Assessments
463
1990c) and the Attachment Doll-Play Interview (Oppenheim 1997). The administration of the MSSB involves an interviewer presenting the story stems to a child
with doll props for her to use so that the child can present both behavioral and verbal
responses to the story stimulus. Story themes cover parent–child attachment, marital
and peer conflict, competence or mastery, moral rules, and moral emotions such as
guilt, shame or empathy. From children’s responses to such stories, researchers can
make inferences about children’s emotional, social, moral, and narrative development (Bretherton and Oppenheim 2003). During administration of the MSSB,
interviewers end story stems with the sentence, ‘‘Show me and tell me what happens
next.’’
Despite the publication of a manual which provides guidelines for the administration and coding of the MSSB, the authors state that the instrument is not
standardized. ‘‘Although we have written a set of standard instructions, the usefulness
of the battery is not, in our view, based on literal adherence to a set of strict rules, but
rather on following the battery’s spirit or underlying aim of facilitating storytelling’’
(Bretherton and Oppenheim 2003, p. 66). They note, ‘‘the validity of a task of this
nature depends on (1) how well the story scripts are constructed, (2) how well the task
is administered, (3) what analysis procedures are used, and (4) what its external
correlates turn out to be’’ (pp. 66–67). Many researchers using the MSSB have
adapted it to their own purposes, borrowing several story stems and adding new ones
to address different aspects of children’s internal worlds (Buchsbaum and Emde 1990;
Hodges and Steele 2000; Hodges et al. 2003b). Bretherton and Oppenheim describe
several different coding schemes used in MSSB research without endorsing one. The
authors state that the MSSB is most appropriate for children ages 36 months and up.
This instrument’s wide use and rigorous manual make it an appropriate choice for
researchers investigating children’s social, emotional and moral development.
Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT)
The ASCT (Bretherton et al. 1990c) consists of five story stems, some of which are
common to the MSSB. This instrument assesses security of attachment in 3-yearolds through a story completion task acted out with family dolls. The story stems
include scenarios of a child spilling juice at the dinner table, a child who hurts his
knee during a family walk, a child who is worried about a monster in his closet, a
child who is left with grandma when parents go on a trip, and the child’s response to
the parents’ return from their trip. One of the strengths of this instrument is that
specific directions are given for administration, transcription and coding. However,
while this study used multiple coders for each transcript, the authors fail to present
data on the degree of consistency achieved.
The authors of this instrument correlated their findings to a behavioral-observation
procedure they tested on the same children at the same time, and found high
concordance between attachment types in both procedures. However, they found
lower concordance between attachment types with Strange Situation classifications
from the same sample at age 18 months and an attachment Q-sort (Waters and Deane
1985) completed by mothers of their sample. Thus, the ASCT appears to demonstrate
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mixed construct validity, which suggests researchers should use caution in administering this instrument to measure children’s attachment. Notably, the instrument has
been revised to assess children living in post-divorce families (Page 2001a; Page and
Bretherton 2001, 2003), which suggests some flexibility in its application.
Separation Anxiety Test (SAT)
Based on Hansburg’s (1972) separation anxiety test for adolescents, the SAT
(Klagsbrun and Bowlby 1976) consists of six photographs designed to elicit
narratives from 4- to 7-year-olds. The photographs show scenes of parent–child
separation. Notably, the SAT consists of separate sets of pictures for boys and girls
so that children can respond to pictures of their same gender. The protocol for the
SAT entails the interviewer briefly describing the photograph (for example, ‘‘in this
picture, the parents go out for evening, leaving the child at home’’) and then asking
the interviewee how the child in the picture is feeling and what he/she will do next.
The authors note that if the child has trouble responding, a list of possible responses
will be read to him. ‘‘Does the little boy feel lonely – or does he feel sad – or does he
feel angry – or does he feel that his parents don’t love him anymore – or that it’s not
really happening – or does he feel like hiding away – or does he feel like he just
doesn’t care – or does he feel that if he’d been a good boy it wouldn’t have
happened...’’ (Klagsbrun and Bowlby, p. 8).
The SAT utilizes a coding system of 14 variables combined into eight indices,
which include attachment-seeking behaviors, self-reliance, hostility, anxiety,
avoidance, and withdrawal. The SAT has been used in several studies (Leibowitz
et al. 2002; Shouldice and Stevenson-Hinde 1992; Slough and Greenberg 1990) and
its scoring mechanisms have been revised through research and use (Slough et al.
1988). The SAT demonstrates construct validity and predictive ability: Main et al.
(1985) found that 6-year-olds who responded to the separation scenes with
emotional openness and offered productive solutions to the separation crises were
more likely to have been securely attached infants when studied several years earlier
with their mothers in the Strange Situation procedure. Given its use over time and its
strong psychometric properties, the SAT is a recommended instrument for
examining attachment and separation issues in this population.
Attachment Doll-Play Interview (ADI)
The ADI (Oppenheim 1997) consists of six story stems and uses dolls as prompts for
the narratives. Oppenheim developed the ADI for use in 3- to 5-year-olds. The ADI
story stems describe separations and reunions of children and mothers. The ADI
includes scenarios of separating and coming together at preschool, parents leaving
to go to the movies, and a mother asking a child to play alone in his/her room.
Several of the stems are also common to the MSSB and the ASCT, such as parents
leaving for vacation while child stays with grandmother, and child falling down and
hurting self.
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A Review of Narrative Assessments
465
The ADI ranks children’s responses on three scales: emotional openness,
constructive resolution, and emotional tone. Oppenheim (1997) provides specific
directions for the administration, transcription and coding of this instrument.
Internal consistency coefficients and inter-rater reliability are notably strong. While
the ADI appears not to be used in other studies, its detailed structure and coding
scheme likely increases the reliability of this instrument, making it a recommended
instrument for the study of attachment in preschoolers.
Emotional Knowledge Interview (EKI)
The EKI (Denham et al. 1990) consists of 20 puppet vignettes to which the
preschool-aged child is invited to respond. In each of the vignettes, the puppet
expresses emotions common to most children (such as fear during a nightmare) or
expresses the opposite emotion of what people might expect him to feel. Using
puppets of family members and standardized vocal and visual cues, experimenters
ask children to identify which emotion the puppet is feeling by pointing to one of
four ‘‘feeling faces’’ on which the expressions for happy, sad, angry and fearful are
drawn. Notably, experimenters do not ask children for open-ended verbal narratives.
The authors developed detailed coding and scoring systems for the EKI, leading
to scores in ‘‘emotional expression identification’’ and ‘‘emotional situation
knowledge.’’ While we do not know of other published studies using the EKI, its
detailed instructions for administration, coding and scoring make it a good choice
for studying emotion recognition and emotional knowledge in preschoolers.
Moreover, because the instrument does not ask children for open-ended verbal
responses, the EKI is a good choice for studying emotional processes in
preschoolers with poorly developed verbal skills.
Dolls’ House Play (DHP)
The DHP (Murray et al. 1999) consists of four scenes, and uses a combination of
story stems and dolls to elucidate children’s experiences of family life. The DHP is
designed for use with 5-year-old children and takes approximately 20 min to
administer. In the DHP, a child is shown a furnished dolls house, is asked to pretend
that it is his/her own house, and is asked to place doll figures representing his/her
family into the house. The child is then instructed to act out with dolls what happens
in the family at (1) a meal time, (2) bedtime, (3) a bad and nasty time, and (4) the
best and favorite time.
Children are videotaped during the procedure, and then scored on five-point
scales in five dimensions: parental care, parental neglect, hostility, care-giving by
the child, and narrative structure. The authors describe a detailed coding scheme and
strong inter-rater reliability. The authors draw links between DHP outcomes and
maternal depression, suggesting that the instrument is valuable in accurately
measuring children’s views of family relationships and family life.
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Family Stories Task (FAST)
The FAST (Shamir et al. 2001) consists of 12 story stems and uses dolls to elicit
children’s responses. This instrument examines children’s understanding of marital
conflict and its impact on multiple family systems. Developed for use with 5- to 8year-olds, the FAST uses some story stems common to the MSSB but focuses
specifically on family systems. The FAST includes four story stems focused on the
father–mother dyad, two stories focused on the mother–child dyad, three stories
focused on the father–child dyad, and three stories focused on the father–mother–
child triad. During the FAST, children are introduced to story stems with small,
family action figures matching each child’s race and gender and are instructed to use
the figures to tell the rest of the story.
The FAST procedure is videotaped and then coded for positive (caregiving,
affection, helpfulness, forgiving, sharing, instructiveness, collaboration, conflict
resolution) and negative categories (inconsistency, helplessness, physical aggression, verbal aggression, nagging, rejection, neglect, ignoring, harsh discipline,
intervention, stalemating, avoidance, blaming, hostility) of family functioning. The
authors use a binary coding scheme, coding only for the presence or absence of
behaviors within each story. Inter-rater reliability was reported as high, ranging
from .71 to 1.00. The authors make links between parental reports of negative
marital conflict strategies and children’s negative representations of parent–child
and marital family systems, suggesting the FAST is effective in eliciting children’s
representations of family subsystems. As the mean age of Shamir et al.’s sample
was 6.5 years, it is unclear whether the instrument will be effective in preschool
populations. Notably, the binary nature of the current FAST coding system may not
allow for subtleties of relationships to be discerned. Moreover, the coherence of
children’s narratives is not assessed or coded in this procedure. Failing to code for
coherence may miss the link between children’s cognitions and their representations
of relationships.
Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (MCAST)
The MCAST (Green et al. 2000) examines the internal working models of 5- to
7-year-old children using six story stems and a combination of prompts. The
MCAST focuses on the child and only one caregiver by asking each child to choose
a doll to represent herself and a doll to represent her caregiver. Children are then
instructed to act out the endings of story stems in a furnished dolls house. Five of the
story stems aim to elicit attachment themes such as proximity-seeking and distress.
The stems include scenarios of waking at night with a nightmare, being lost in a
large crowd while shopping with a parent, and falling and hurting a knee, among
others. The interviewer uses structured probes and the procedure is videotaped. The
MCAST takes approximately 20–30 minutes to administer and 1–2 hours to code.
Coding for the MCAST is derived from the Adult Attachment Interview (George
et al. 1984) and the Strange Situation procedures and focuses both on structure and
content of the child’s narrative. In total, there are 33 code-able responses that fall
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A Review of Narrative Assessments
467
into four broad groups: attachment-related behaviors (proximity-seeking, caregiving,
conflict), narrative coherence, disorganized phenomena, and additional ratings (bizarre
content, mentalizing ability, reflective capacity). Following coding, narratives are
grouped into a categorical A, B, C, D or CC rating, parallel to Adult Attachment
Interview categories. Inter-rater reliability is reported as high (.80–.94), and the authors
provide analysis of content validity and stability of the instrument over time. In sum,
the authors present a compelling new instrument for analyzing the attachment
representations and internal working models of 5- to 7-year-old children.
Play Narratives (PN)
The PN (Mol Lous et al. 2002) uses six story stems and a combination of dolls for
prompts. The PN assess both the quality and quantity of child play. Constructs
within the PN consider symbolic play where objects or actions represent something
else and non-symbolic play where a child engages in a concrete activity. The
instrument also assesses several non-play behaviors, including exploration of the
situation, interaction with the environment or experimenter, and non-engagement
activities, such as staring.
In the PN, the experimenter presents several dolls to a child and the child chooses
one that represents him. Next, six standardized story stems are presented that have
themes typical of daily life, such as waking up, going to school, etc. Some stories
are primed with specific emotions, such as ‘‘sad’’ or ‘‘happy,’’ while others are
presented as neutral. The authors recommend counterbalancing story sequences to
control for presentation effects. After hearing each story stem, the child is asked to
complete the story. Children’s responses to story stems are videotaped for later
coding.
From the little data that is available, the PN seems to have good scientific merit:
researchers achieved good inter-rater reliability in coding, used a standardized
format, and found support for their research hypotheses. The authors found that
narratives from depressed and non-depressed children significantly differed in
regard to symbolic play references. Thus, the PN seems a good choice for
researchers looking to consider the context of play on children’s affective states.
Conflict Task (CT)
The CT (Priel et al. 1995) consists of six story stems using picture prompts. The CT
assesses the level of maturity children use in solving conflicts between themselves
and parents and is guided by object relations theory. The authors define maturity in
solving conflict as the degree to which children can differentiate between self and
others, form consensus, consider others, and take others’ perspectives. In this task,
the experimenter presents six pictures depicting a child and parent in some form of
conflict. Half of the pictures depict mothers and half depict fathers. An example
question is, ‘‘This boy wants to keep looking at the picture book, but the father says
it is late and he should go to bed.’’ After each picture, interviewers ask questions
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J. E. Bettmann, B. W. Lundahl
about children’s feelings and expected reactions. Responses are recorded and
transcribed verbatim for later coding.
Priel et al. report high inter-rater reliability values and good internal consistency
for the CT. Little is known about the CT’s psychometric properties as it appears to
have been used only by its authors. The authors report support for the hypotheses
that older children would show more developed thinking about how to solve
interpersonal conflict compared to younger children. Thus, the CT appears to be an
effective instrument for researchers considering children’s ability to approach
interpersonal conflict with their parents and take others’ perspectives.
Incomplete Doll Stories (IDS)
The Incomplete Doll Stories (Cassidy 1988) ask children to complete six short
stories using a doll family. Children’s responses to the stories are used to assess the
degree to which the child perceives him/herself involved in a secure relationship
with mother. Specifically, the IDS assess children’s perceptions of being accepted,
valued, and protected, the importance of the maternal relationship, and the ability to
resolve conflict. In IDS administration, the researcher gives the child a doll family
and asks him to tell stories about giving a gift to mother, saying ‘‘sorry’’ to mother,
and situations of conflict between child and mother. Two other stories present
external threats to the family: having a bicycle stolen and hearing a loud noise in
the night.
Children’s responses are transcribed and then evaluated in two ways. First,
responses are rated on a five-point scale with higher scores suggesting greater
security with an attachment figures. Second, responses are classified into one of
three groups: secure/confident, avoidant, and hostile/negative. Overall, Cassidy
(1988) reported adequate to good inter-rater reliability in coding children’s
responses. The author found that constructs assessed correlated in the predicted
direction with scores from other attachment instruments. This instrument is
recommended for investigating attachment in children as it shows both good
psychometric properties and emerging support of its validity.
Puppet Interview (PI)
The PI (Cassidy 1988) consists of an interview using hand puppets as prompts. The
PI assesses a child’s perceptions of how someone else might view him/her by using
a puppet to deliver 20 questions. In the PI, a large hand puppet of a frog or duck
delivers questions to a child. For example, the researcher using the puppet asks, ‘‘Do
you like (child’s name)?’’ and ‘‘Do you want (child’s name) to be your friend?’’ and
‘‘Do you think (child’s name) is important?’’ (Cassidy, p. 125) Children’s responses
to these questions are transcribed and coded into one of three classification groups:
perfect view of self, negative view of self, and open/flexible view of self. The
perfect and negative view of self are considered to be indicators of unhealthy selfperception. The perfect classification is considered unrealistic and indicative of
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discomfort with minor flaws. Similarly, the negative view of self is considered to
reveal a critical negative perspective of the child’s value and acceptance by others.
By contrast, the open/flexible classification indicates a child’s overall positive
acceptance of self including an ability to admit to certain flaws.
Cassidy reports high inter-rater reliability in classifying children’s stories and
finds that responses to the PI correlated in the predicted direction with established
measures of attachment. Specifically, ‘‘children with more secure attachments
obtained the more optimal puppet interview scale scores’’ (Cassidy, p. 128). The PI
is recommended for its good psychometric properties, ease in administration, and
emerging support for its validity in assessing attachment.
Bears’ Picnic (BP)
The BP (Mueller and Tingley 1990) consists of six story stems using a combination
of prompts to assess children’s core representations of self and other others. The BP
was developed based on cognitive, socio-cultural, and developmental theories. To
administer the BP, a researcher presents a child with a family of bears, consisting of
father, mother, brother and sister, and several supporting toys, such as toy food. The
researcher assigns the child to be either the brother or sister bear, consistent with the
child’s gender. Next, the researcher tells a series of story stems using the bears as
the main characters to which the child is invited to respond. All of the stories
involve family relationships. Some story stems include situations where an accident
occurs (e.g., spilling food) or someone needs help (e.g., mother bear cannot
complete a task alone) or there is a separation (e.g., child bear leaves for school).
Children’s responses are coded into three broad ‘‘markers’’: fantasy failure (no
response), valuing, and devaluing. If the child’s character or family characters are
portrayed as helping, caring and nurturing others, the valuing marker is assigned.
The Devaluing maker is assigned if the child’s character or others behave in hostile,
selfish, rejecting, or hurtful ways toward others. Mueller and Tingley report good
inter-rater reliability. They note that responses to the BP followed predicted
directions. Specifically, codes from behavioral observations of mothers and children
playing together correlated with children’s responses to the BP task. For example,
maternal sensitivity was negatively correlated with children’s tendency to produce
devaluing themes. While the BP does not appear to enjoy wide use, it seems a
promising instrument. The procedures for its administration and scoring are detailed
and initial research supports its capability in accessing dimensions of children’s
inner worlds.
Discussion
In infancy and toddlerhood, children develop schemas based on their relational
experiences. Such schemas are important because they are believed to guide
children’s perceptions of self and others and therefore to influence actions.
Understanding such schemas has important research and clinical applications. Yet,
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gaining direct access to young children’s schemas is difficult due to their
underdeveloped language skills and cognitive functioning. Narrative assessment
tools are a class of indirect measures of children’s internal worlds that gather
information from young children. Prior to narrative assessments, measures of
attachment had been developed for children below about 20 months of age
(Ainsworth et al. 1978) and for kindergarteners (Main and Cassidy 1988) which
were laboratory procedures necessitating significant time and expense to administer
and code. With the rise of narrative assessment instruments, researchers and
clinicians now have access to instruments that can access young children’s internal
worlds in a relatively efficient and effective manner.
Our review considers the literature of narrative assessment instruments examining young children’s internal worlds. By facilitating storytelling, narrative
assessments provide a unique glimpse into aspects of children’s social, emotional,
and cognitive functioning. The instruments we reviewed investigated a range of
constructs, including children’s perceptions of self, attachment relationships, moral
values, prosocial behavior, separation anxiety, depression, family conflict and
problem-solving, among others. The recent publication dates on these tools suggest
that there is increasing interest in the utility of narrative assessment instruments for
young children.
Several properties of narrative assessment instruments make them attractive.
Their ability to gather rich data from a difficult-to-assess population may prove
useful to augment existing assessment batteries or further understanding of children
by examining other constructs. Importantly, these narrative assessments enhance
our ability to obtain data directly from young children, rather than from their
parents, teachers or others. Thorough assessment entails gathering multiple types of
data from multiple sources. The increasing popularity of narrative assessments
serves to increase the tools available to researchers and clinicians. For the most part,
the instruments reviewed are relatively easy to administer, portable, quick to
administer, and culturally flexible. It is notable that many narrative instruments
employ animal characters or stories which do not suggest skin color, while other
instruments can be easily adapted to the ethnicity or culture of most samples.
Moreover, all of the instruments reviewed can be administered within the time
constraints of a clinical hour, making these tools useful to clinicians.
Like all research tools, the narrative assessment instruments we reviewed were
not equally well developed. Of the 13 instruments reviewed here, most appear to
have good psychometric properties as evidenced by high inter-rater reliability and
support for validity. However, we noticed significant variability among some of
these instruments with regard to rigor and methodology. While these instruments
may be easy to administer, their coding and interpretation is not as straightforward.
The measurements described vary greatly in their adherence to a specific set of
detailed coding procedures. Some measurements include book-length coding
manuals, while others devote a sentence or two to a loose coding mechanism.
Other authors fail to describe any coding scheme for their instruments. While
certainly not every measurement needs a lengthy coding manual, the lack of detailed
coding scheme renders instruments less useful as they are less replicable. The field
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of narrative assessment would likely benefit from an increase in the description of
administration and coding mechanisms.
A possible disadvantage of narrative assessment tools is that they require a
specific set of clinical skills for working with preschoolers. This set of skills,
alliance-building included, is little detailed in the literature. Researchers seem to
assume that those administering the instruments will know intuitively how to use
them. Moreover, obtaining reliable coding often requires considerable training time
and utilizes developed research skills. Even such basic components of narrative
assessments such as prompts or instructions for eliciting early responses are barely
discussed in the reports of these instruments. Many instruments use a standardized
prompt, such ‘‘Show me and tell me what happens next,’’ but follow-up probes are
not well-detailed in these instruments’ publication which may introduce greater
variance or error into the data. This lack of detail leads one to believe that there is as
much as art as science in the administration of narrative assessments to
preschoolers. Without precision in instrument administration, there can be little
accurate replication in narrative studies.
Future research using narrative assessment instruments should focus on the
extent to which these tools are useful for different populations. Significantly, little
detail is provided for most instruments regarding the populations on which they
have been tested. While socioeconomic and age data is normatively given, racial
and ethnic data is not. This lack of information with regard to how the instruments
perform with children across different backgrounds undermines generalization and
should be remedied. Research has long revealed important differences in the
presentation of varied racial and ethnic groups (Canino and Spurlock 1994). As
researchers, we must not treat every preschooler identically but rather use sensitivity
in assessing the varied strengths, needs and presentations.
Researchers should also use sensitivity in instrument selection when considering
children’s family structure. Notably, some instruments reviewed here specify a
‘‘traditional’’ family structure with one mother doll and one father doll used to elicit
narratives. Given changing family demographics in the U.S., researchers should
remember that many if not most preschoolers assessed will have alternate family
structures, potentially including a stepmother, mother and father, or perhaps just two
fathers. Researchers should consider the appropriateness of such instruments with
preschoolers from diverse family structures.
Narrative assessment instruments show enormous promise as tools for examining
young children’s internal worlds. While critique of some instruments’ coding and
administration seems appropriate, the field of narrative assessment as a whole
appears to be developing as a strong and appropriate component of child mental
health assessment. These tools’ efficiency in gathering information from a difficultto-assess young population holds promise for researchers and clinicians alike.
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