Narrative Therapy Program - Using Story Grammar for Language Therapy

Working on Narrative Language Skills in Speech Pathology

Children need to understand and use narrative language skills for a range of purposes. Their abilities can help them form social relationships and participate in academic tasks. Narrative ability during the preschool years is also linked to reading comprehension skills in school-age children.

Even though children are expected to develop these skills in the preschool years, many children with language disorders have a specific and ongoing difficulty with text-level receptive and expressive language, i.e. discourse.

Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) or other neurodevelopmental diagnoses impacting language may tell stories that are:

• shorter,
• less descriptive, and
• less grammatically complex.

Children with language difficulties may produce stories with:

• errors in story structure,
• fewer cognitive mental state verbs,
• fewer causal explanations, and
• more irrelevant information.

Speech Language Pathologists are lucky to have a relatively solid body of evidence emerging about narrative intervention, which is why this is one of the first resources I produced. I created this in 2019 and have been modifying it every couple of years, based on what works in my practice, the articles I read, and the professional development workshops I attend. 

Here are some key features of this resource, based on the research and my own clinical experience as a Speech Pathologist (I’ve been working since 2009):

• Uses icons to represent narrative macrostructure, also known as "story grammar".
• Graphic organisers to structure receptive and expressive abilities.
• Designed to be used with commercially available books and videos, i.e. real-world texts that are motivating and appealing for children.
• Opportunities for multiple examples and repeated practice.
• Able to be scaffolded by SLPs to support the child at their individual level.

I’m so proud that this Narrative Therapy Program is being used by Speech Pathologists around the country, and I hope that soon I will be able to say it’s being used around the world :)

Be sure to tag me on social media @SummerHillSpeech #SummerHillSpeech #SLPforKids so I can see the great work you’re doing!