Storytelling from pictures using the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument

This paper describes the development of an instrument for collecting story samples and local norms, the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument (ENNI), and presents results of one measure of storytelling ability used with the ENNI data, story grammar units (SGU). The purpose of the present study was to examine the measure’s ability to detect developmental changes in story production and discriminate between children with and without language impairments. Participants were 377 children aged 4-9 (300 with typical development, 77 with language impairments). Each child told stories while looking at picture stimuli (with no oral model). The SGU measure revealed a significant age trend. The measure correctly classified children aged 4-8 into groups 80.8% of the time. Thus the ENNI shows promise as part of the speech-language pathologist’s battery of instruments.