Evaluation and description of narrative development in Spanish

Background and objectives. The skills involved in narrative production are a good indicator of children's current language competence and predict future linguistic performance. It is important in speech and language therapy and education research to have specific assessments of developing narrative abilities. To date, however, there are few tests that assess the development of narratives in Spanish. This research has a double objective: first, to adapt the Test of Narrative Production to Spanish; and second, to describe the development of narrative skills using the adapted test.

Method. A total of 146 children aged 4-11 years with Spanish as their mother tongue were evaluated by the Test of Narrative Production adapted to Spanish, and were assessed for their narrative skills at the level of both macrostructure and microstructure.

Results. A strong significant correlation between age and narrative performance was observed at the macrostructural and microstructural levels. However, although both levels showed a stabilization at age 9 years, at the microstructural level cohesive devices continued developing until age 11 years.

Conclusions. The test can be considered a valid evaluation of narrative development in Spanish. The results are consistent with research in English-speaking children, where it has been shown that they acquire a similar level of narrative performance to that of adults at 9 years of age at the macrostructural level, but they continue to develop and refine the microstructural level until adolescence.