Title: Effects of storytelling intervention using AAC on narrative skills of young adults with
intellectual disability
Narrative discourse plays a critical role in the development of discourse, literacy, and socialization
abilities (McCabe, 1996). Narratives cover a wide range of discourse structures and formats, from an
informal and rather prosaic conversational exchange to the most elaborate tale and artistic literary work
(Ochs & Capps, 2001). Because of its importance, narrative discourse should be a major component of
assessment and intervention programs for school-age children with language disorders (Bliss, McCabe,
& Miranda, 1998). However, the importance of narrative has been little known in the special education
field in Korea. Most of the learning contents through Korean language subject have focused to
understanding Korean alphabet, simple reading and writing skills in the special education field. Because
of this trend, although some people with mild intellectual disability can read some books which have
simple sentences and write 2-3 sentences, they show repeat of simple vocabularies, telegraphic
sentence and have difficulties to utter narrative discourse and to interact with other people. By Bliss,
McCabe, and Miranda (1998), discourse dimensions of the narrative assessment profile were six
dimensions: topic maintenance, event sequencing, explicitness, referencing, conjunctive cohesion, and
fluency. This study is relation to increase narrative skills of adults with intellectual disability.
The participants were 3 young adult aged from 24 to 30 years old working in the workplace for people
with disabilities which is located in Gyeongnam province of South Korea. Their vocabulary ability was
from 6 to 9.5 years old. They didn’t have experience of using AAC system. The present study used
storytelling intervention using communication board as an AAC system. Two communication boards
were used. One was consisted with 32 vocabularies including nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs for
saying narration, and the other one was consisted with 12 vocabularies including conjunctions and
demonstrative pronouns to express Topic maintenance, Explicitness, Referencing, Conjunctive cohesion,
and Fluency. The storytelling intervention program was consisted with three main activities. The
beginning storytelling activities were consisted with “saying again the story after listen a story”, “saying
the story following pictures”, and “answering about questions after listen a story”. The midterm
storytelling activities were consisted with “saying using conjunction”, “processing a story following the
core topic”, and “saying following five W’s and one H”. The final storytelling activities were consisted
with “saying the story with imagination following the sequence of a story,” and “saying own experiences
or feelings after listen a story”.
The results are shown below.
First, storytelling intervention using AAC was effective in improving topic maintenance of young adults with
intellectual disability. Through the intervention, participants with intellectual disability could make their
narrative to be more meaningful and organizing and conversation about central topic for communicating with
their partners.
Second, storytelling intervention using AAC was effective in improving explicitness of young adults with
intellectual disability for communicating with their partners. That results in making the construction of
sentence and vocabulary more various rather than a word or simple sentence limited to the specific wording.
Third, storytelling intervention using AAC was effective in improving referencing of young adults with
intellectual disability. Through using the demonstrative pronoun that would not be used at all, their story
connection became to be more clarify.
Fourth, storytelling intervention using AAC was effective in improving conjunctive cohesion of young adults
with intellectual disability. Through increasing of the rate of conjunction that would not be used at all, they
could express the relationship of sentences more cleanly.
Finally, storytelling intervention using AAC was effective in improving fluency of young adults with
intellectual disability. Through the intervention, their same sentence repetition and failure in smooth talking
became to be decreased.
After finishing the intervention, two participants could often utter their narrative without communication
board including conjunctions and demonstrative pronouns. And they used try to initiate communication
with teachers beginning their narrative. Those results imply that storytelling intervention using AAC is
effective and positive on narrative skills improvement for young adults with intellectual disability. This study
show the importance of AAC system as augmentative aids that is, supplemental ways as not alternative ways.
Many Korean teachers and parents think still AAC is just for nonverbal individuals with severe disabilities as
alternative aids. This study will provide the chance of the change of the thoughts about concept and using of
AAC system in Korea.
REFERENCES:
Bliss, L. S., McCabe, A., & Mirenda, A. E. (1998). Narrative assessment profile: Discourse analysis for
school-age children. Journal of Communication Disorders, 31, 347-362.
McCabe, A. (1996). Chameleon readers: Teaching children to appreciate all kinds of good stories. NY:
McGraw-Hill. 121-142.
Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (2001). Living narrative: Creating lives in everyday storytelling. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.