Purpose: This study investigated the expressive elaboration of narrativesfrom children with specific language impairment (SLI).

Method: Forty-eight 6- and 8-year-old children with SLI were comparedwith forty-eight 6- and 8-year-old typical language (TL) children.Two imaginative narratives were scored for 14 elements of expressiveelaboration in 3 categories. A subset of simple elements wasanalyzed separately. The effect of adult models and contextwas also considered.

Results: Children with SLI (whether 6 or 8 years of age) and youngerTL children produced stories with significantly fewer appendages(e.g., Abstract, Coda), orientations (e.g., name, personalityfeature), and evaluations (e.g., interesting modifier, dialogue)than older TL children. The children with SLI and younger childrenshowed significantly poorer performance even on simple elementssuch as character names and repetition (He ran and ran). Childrenwith SLI, although performing lower than their TL age peers,demonstrated improvements from the 1st to the 2nd fictionalstory. Children with SLI were not differentially affected bythe adult models.

Conclusion: This study shows that expressive elaboration of narratives issensitive to age- and language-level differences. The resultssuggest that children with SLI need guidance on artful storytelling,even for simple story elements.