PURPOSE We investigated the impact of narrative task complexity on macrostructure in both languages of bilingual kindergarten children and the relationship of macrostructure across languages to guide practitioners' choice of assessment tools and aid in interpretation of results. METHOD Thirty-nine English-Hebrew bilingual kindergarten children (Mage = 65 months) retold two narratives in each language: a one-episode story and a three-episode story. Stories were coded for macrostructure using five story grammar (SG) elements: Internal State-Initiating Event, Goal, Attempt, Outcome, and Internal State-Reaction. Linear mixed and generalized linear mixed models were used to analyze scores for total macrostructure, episode, and SG elements; correlations were conducted to examine cross-language relations in macrostructure. RESULTS In general, performance on the single-episode story was significantly better than for the three-episode story: higher percentages of SG elements were produced, with better performance in the home language/English. In addition to Task and Language effects, Age and Episode (Episodes 1/2/3 of the three-episode story vs. one-episode story) emerged as predictors of macrostructure. Performance on the different episodes of the three-episode story varied, with Episode 3 yielding scores similar to those on the one-episode story. Children produced more Attempts and Outcomes than other SG elements. Finally, the total macrostructure scores yielded low to moderate correlations across languages for both one-episode and three-episode stories, but there were no significant cross-task (one-episode/three-episode story) correlations. CONCLUSIONS The study illustrates the importance of task complexity in narrative performance. Ideally, assessment should include a variety of tools, which would include narratives varying in complexity. However, time constraints do not always permit this luxury. The findings here may offer more to therapists than to diagnosticians. Narratives should be manipulated for episodic complexity not only in the number of episodes but also with regard to characters, goals, feelings, and reactions to events. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25222094.

中文翻译：

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叙事任务复杂性和语言对双语幼儿园儿童宏观结构的影响。


目的我们研究了叙事任务复杂性对双语幼儿园儿童两种语言宏观结构的影响以及跨语言宏观结构的关系，以指导从业者选择评估工具并帮助解释结果。方法 39 名英语-希伯来语双语幼儿园儿童（Mage = 65 个月）用每种语言重述两个故事：一个单集故事和一个三集故事。使用五个故事语法 (SG) 元素对故事进行宏观结构编码：内部状态发起事件、目标、尝试、结果和内部状态反应。使用线性混合模型和广义线性混合模型来分析总宏观结构、事件和 SG 元素的分数；进行相关性来检查宏观结构中的跨语言关系。结果 总体而言，单集故事的表现明显优于三集故事：SG 元素的比例更高，母语/英语的表现也更好。除了任务和语言效应之外，年龄和情节（三集故事的第 1/2/3 集与一集故事的第 1/2/3 集）也成为宏观结构的预测因素。三集故事的不同剧集的表现各不相同，第三集的得分与一集故事的得分相似。儿童比其他 SG 元素做出了更多的尝试和成果。最后，对于一集和三集故事，宏观结构总得分在不同语言之间产生了低到中等的相关性，但没有显着的跨任务（一集/三集故事）相关性。结论 这项研究说明了任务复杂性在叙事表现中的重要性。 理想情况下，评估应包括各种工具，其中包括复杂程度不同的叙述。然而，时间限制并不总是允许这种奢侈。这里的发现可能为治疗师提供比诊断医生更多的信息。叙事的复杂性不仅体现在情节数量上，还体现在人物、目标、感受和对事件的反应等方面。补充材料 https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25222094。