Effects of Social-Cognitive Processing Demands and Structural Importance on Narrative Recall: Differences Between Children, Adolescents, and Adults

Abstract

This study examined the contributions of developmental changes in social-cognitive ability throughout adolescence to the development of narrative comprehension. We measured the effects of sensitivity to the causal structure of narratives and of sensitivity to differences in social-cognitive processing demands on narrative recall by children (8-10 years old), adolescents (13 -15 years old), and adults (19-21 years old). Generalized mixed-effects models for dichotomous variables revealed that social-cognitive processing demands of story elements predicted differences in narrative recall between the age groups, over and above the causal importance of story elements. Children's and adolescents' recall of the narrative differed from that of adults, and these differences were most apparent for social-cognitive aspects of the narrative. These findings suggest that immature social-cognitive abilities limit narrative comprehension in childhood and adolescence and, in doing so, contribute to our understanding of the interaction between reader characteristics and text characteristics in the development of narrative comprehension. 488q Marcella Pavias, Paul van den Broek, Marian

A preliminary investigation of parent-reported fiction versus non-fiction book preferences of school-age children with autism spectrum disorder

“…In addition, theory of mind both directly and indirectly through higher order language measures predicts the development of reading comprehension skills in preschoolers and kindergarteners (Atkinson, Slade, Powell, & Levy, 2017; Kim, 2015). Also, social-cognitive development has been shown to contribute to increasingly successful understanding of a story’s social-cognitive aspects in older school-age individuals (Pavias, van den Broek, Hickendorff, Beker, & Van Leijenhorst, 2016). Finally, in the other direction, listening to storybooks and answering questions about mental states improved preschoolers’ theory of mind (Guajardo & Watson, 2002), and adults’ theory of mind improved after reading literary fiction compared to non-fiction (Black & Barnes, 2015).…”

Children’s Narrative Elaboration After Reading a Storybook Versus Viewing a Video

“…The Why (sub-)components were not significantly correlated with the children’s IQ scores in our sample. Previous research has found that incorporation of these elements (explanatory and interpretative clauses about character motivations and causality) within narrative retellings is related to children’s age and sociocognitive development in later childhood ( Genereux and McKeough, 2007 ; Nicolopoulou and Richner, 2007 ; Colletta et al, 2010 ; Pavias et al, 2016 ; Hamilton et al, 2020 ). In order to talk about the whys of the story presented to them, children are required to both comprehend and infer a number of implicit story details and then construe them mentally and linguistically to make them accessible to their narrative audience.…”

“…In this respect, the ability to express temporal and causal sequencing in a more differentiated way depends on the complexity of linguistic means available to the speaker ( Veneziano and Nicolopoulou, 2019 ). The reasons for children’s struggle with incorporating important details can also be related to limited discursive and sociocognitive skills which enable them to effectively orient their listener and adjust the narrative to their informational needs ( Saywitz and Snyder, 1996 ; Saywitz et al, 1996 ; Genereux and McKeough, 2007 ; Colletta et al, 2010 ; Melzi et al, 2011 ; Pavias et al, 2016 ; Dore et al, 2018 ; Hamilton et al, 2020 ).…”

Training Can Increase Students’ Choices for Written Solution Strategies and Performance in Solving Multi-Digit Division Problems

“…All models were random person-random item Rasch models (RPRI; De Boeck, 2008 ), with a random intercept for students, and also a random intercept for items (as the problems were considered a draw from the larger domain of multidigit division). The explanatory variables were added in stepwise fashion (as in Stevenson et al, 2013 , see also Pavias et al, 2016 ), allowing evaluation of the added value of each step by comparing the models based on the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), and likelihood ratio tests. The AIC and BIC balance model fit and parsimony (lower values are better).…”