Abstract
Young children have been found to use referring expressions less adequately than older children to introduce and maintain reference to characters and objects in their stories. Indirect evidence suggests that this tendency may be stronger when children look at pictures as they retell stories; they may tend to presuppose shared knowledge of information in pictures, even when the listener clearly cannot see the pictures. The present study is an investigation of the effects of presenting stories pictorially versus orally on children's use of adequate reference.
Retellings of stories by 44 children in Kindergarten and Grade 2 were compared when they were presented: (a) orally, (b) through pictures, and (c) both orally and pictorially. An oral version was created for each of 3 picture sets, representing a single complete episode with 2 characters. Oral versions were controlled for length, story units, and language level. Within-subject comparisons revealed main effects for both presentation type and age, and an interaction. The younger children used a higher percentage of adequate reference in the oral-only than the picture-only condition. Older children used high percentages of adequate reference in all conditions. Thus it appears that older children can use referring expressions equally adequately whether they hear stories or view pictures, while younger children do not use adequate reference when they only view pictures and must formulate the story themselves.
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