Performance of typically developing children, children with specific language impairment, and children with autism spectrum disorder in the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument (ENNI)

Authors

• Leena Mäkinen University of Oulu, Research unit of logopedics, Child Language Research Center
• Soile Loukusa University of Oulu, Research unit of logopedics, Child Language Research Center
• Sari Kunnari University of Oulu, Research unit of logopedics, Child Language Research Center

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23997/pk.65950

Keywords:

autism spectrum disorder, narration, specific language impairment, story generation, typical language development

Abstract

This study investigated the performance of four- to eight-year-old (N=171) typically
developing children in the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument (ENNI). In addition,
19 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 16 children with autism
spectrum disorder (ASD) and their control children participated in order to determine
the discriminatory validity of the ENNI. Narratives were analyzed for the amount of
information produced (story grammar score, SG) and total number of words (TNW).
Results show a developmental trend both in SG and in TNW. In particular, the ENNI
seems to differentiate four- and five-year-olds and five- and six-year-olds from each other
as well as from older age groups. No differences between girls and boys were detected.
Children with SLI and children with ASD showed poorer narrative abilities than their
control children. The narratives of children with SLI contained less information and
were also shorter than those of typically developing children. For children with ASD,
significant differences compared to control children were only seen in SG. Since there are
only a few narrative assessment methods available in Finnish, the use of the ENNI might
be recommended for analyzing children’s narrative skills. However, care should be taken in
interpreting the normative values, since high heterogeneity is typical for narration.