Desarrollo de la reconstrucción de narrativas lógico-causales y arbitrario-temporales en la niñez

Abstract

In this research children’s capacity to reconstruct narrative discourse was analyzed at different levels of development (pre-school; 2nd and 4th grades). The subjects selected from various grammar schools had to perform two tasks on two separate occasions. First; listen to a brief short story; and then —after an interlude— retell it. The two stories were selected on the basis of structural and semantic plot differences. One had a logical causal consequence; the other; an arbitrary temporal one. The children’s production was analysed on the basis of a system of semantic categories: accuracy; augmentations; transformations; and inversions of information. On the basis of the compiled data; differences in the development of the abilities to reconstruct were evident together with a great sensibility among the children toward narrative discourse. Also apparent were the complex interactions between the linguistic input (type of text) and the cognitive and linguistic processes (level of development) with the task at hand (retelling). The data was also compared with a similar research done with English speaking children. Parallelisms were found in both groups. The results in general back-up the idea of interrelationships in the explanations of psychollngulstic phenomena.