The Effects of Visual Stimuli on the Spoken Narrative Performance of School-Age African American Children, with Erratum

Purpose. This study investigated the fictional narrative performance of school-age African American children across 3 elicitation contexts that differed in the type of visual stimulus presented. Method. A total of 54 children in Grades 2 through 5 produced narratives across 3 different visual conditions: no visual, picture sequence, and single picture. Narratives were examined for visual condition differences in expressive elaboration rate, number of different word roots (NDW) rate, mean length of utterance in words, and dialect density. The relationship between diagnostic risk for language impairment and narrative variables was explored. Results. Expressive elaboration rate and mean length of utterance in words were higher in the no-visual condition than in either the picture-sequence or the single-picture conditions. NDW rate was higher in the no-visual and picture-sequence conditions than in the single-picture condition. Dialect density performance across visual context depended on the child's grade, so that younger children produced a higher rate of African American English in the no-visual condition than did older children. Diagnostic risk was related to NDW rate and dialect density measure. Conclusion. The results suggest the need for narrative elicitation contexts that include verbal as well as visual tasks to fully describe the narrative performance of school-age African American children with typical development. ---Erratum--- In the original article, the text in the Abstract on p. 337 reads, “Dialect density performance across visual context depended on the child's grade, so that younger children produced a higher rate of African American English in the no-visual condition than did older children. Diagnostic risk was related to NDW rate and dialect density measure.” The text should have stated, “African American English production across visual context depended on the child's grade, such that younger children produced a lower rate of AAE in the picture sequence condition than did older children. Diagnostic risk was related with NDW rate but unrelated with dialect density measure.” In addition, on p. 346, the original text reads, “As shown in Table 2, these children produced DDM rates that were similar in the no-visual (M = 0.02, SD = 0.01), picture-sequence (M = 0.03, SD = 0.02), and single-picture (M = 0.03, SD = 0.02) conditions.” For clarity, the text should have stated, “As shown in Table 2, older children produced DDM rates that were similar in the no-visual (M = 0.02, SD = 0.01), picture-sequence (M = 0.03, SD = 0.02), and single-picture (M = 0.03, SD = 0.02) conditions.” We sincerely apologize for this error.