ERRNI (Expression Reception and Recall of Narrative Instrument) En utprövning och utvärdering på svensktalande sexoch åttaåringar med åldersadekvat språklig förmåga

Sammanfattning: material Expression Reception and Recall of Narrative Instrument (ERRNI) in six- and eightyear old children with typical language development. ERRNI provides information about a person's narrative skills, including expressive language and story comprehension. ERRNI can be used in a clinical context, by speech language pathologists or psychologists, when evaluating nan·ative skills in both children and adults. ERRNI consists oftwo story books (Beach StOJy and Fish St01y), thereby enabling the clinican to retest without a learning effect. The test procedure was as follows: the child initially was presented with a wann-up picture and told the tester about the contents of the picture. Next, the child was asked to look through a story book and was then asked to tell a story. After a time delay the child was asked to retell the story and was afterwards asked comprehension questions about the story. By evaluating a child's nanative ability, an indication can be given as to the future language skills of the child. It is thereby of great imporiance that speech language pathologists evaluate the nanative ability as a part ofthe language examination. In Sweden, The Bus StOJy is the most commonly used test material for evaluating and examining the narrative ability of children. A Swedish version of The Bus Story has been developed with norms for children between the ages of four to eight. But there is a need for a test for school age children in Sweden. A total of 87 Swedish speaking children with typical language ability participated in the present study. The children were recruited from three different regions in Sweden and where evenly divided into the two age groups. Unlike the English original version, bilingual children where included in order to make the groups compatible with the multilingual language culture in Sweden. This decision was made by the authors in collaboration with the supervisors. A statistical significant difference between the results ofthe six- and eight-year old children was found. The results show that the eight-year old children received a higher score on the total of measured parameters, thereby making clear that ERRNI can be used to separate the two age groups in nanative ability. A statistical significant difference was also found between the two stories, but only concerning the comprehension questions asked after the child retold the story. The research findings were translated into percentiles. The results of the study are discussed in relation to research made on nanative ability, nanative development and elicitation strategies. Also, the usefulness ofERRNI is discussed. Like many other tests for evaluating nanative ability, ERRNI is time demanding concerning administration and analysis but the test provides comprehensive information about a person's narrative ability and skills within a wide age range. Keywords: ERRNI, narrative