Narrative in adolescent specific language impairment (SLI): a comparison with peers across two different narrative genres

Background: Narrative may provide a useful way in which to assess the language ability of adolescents with specific language impairment and may be more ecologically valid than standardized tests. However, the language of this age group is seldom studied and, furthermore, the effect of narrative genre has not been explored in detail. Methods & Procedures: A total of 99 typically developing adolescents and 19 peers with specific language impairment were given two different types of narrative task: a story-telling condition and a conversational condition. Four areas of narrative (productivity, syntactic complexity, syntactic errors and performance) were assessed. Outcomes & Results: The group with specific language impairment was poorer on most aspects of narrative confirming recent research that specific language impairment is a long-term disorder. A number of measures also showed interactions between group and genre, with story-telling proving to be a disproportionately more difficult task for the specific language impairment group. Error analysis also suggested that the specific language impairment group was making qualitatively different errors to the typically developing group, even within a genre. Conclusions: Adolescents with specific language impairment are not only poorer at both types of narrative than peers, but also show different patterns of competence and error, and require more support from the narrative-partner. Clinical Implications: Assessments of adolescents are less frequent than at younger ages. This is partly because of the sparsity of tests available in this age range. Qualitative analysis of narrative might prove a useful alternative. The findings suggest that in every-day conversation, young people with specific language impairment manage their difficulties more discreetly and this might make them harder to identify in a mainstream setting

Systemic inquiry as a form of qualitative Inquiry

Chapter 1 in boo

The triple bind of narration: Fritz Schütze’s biographical interview in prison research and beyond

In this article we re-evaluate Fritz Schütze’s biographical interview method with its orientation towards the analysis of social problems experienced by the individual. We used Schütze’s method in a study of repeat offenders in a Polish prison, and on the basis of this experience we believe that we make two contributions – one to social science enquiry in general, and one to prison sociology. We argue that in social science research this method offers unique insights into the process of identity formation. These insights are made possible because of the ‘triple bind of narration’ inherent in Schütze’s method, that is to say the requirement to close, the requirement to condense and the requirement to provide detail. In relation to prison research we argue that Schütze’s method has rehabilitation value in making the interviewee/narrator re-evaluate their life through biography work. We also offer practical advice on how to conduct such interviews

Evaluating Engagement in Digital Narratives from Facial Data

Engagement researchers indicate that the engagement level of people in a narrative has an influence on people's subsequent story-related attitudes and beliefs, which helps psychologists understand people's social behaviours and personal experience. With the arrival of multimedia, the digital narrative combines multimedia features (e.g. varying images, music and voiceover) with traditional storytelling. Research on digital narratives has been widely used in helping students gain problem-solving and presentation skills as well as supporting child psychologists investigating children's social understanding such as family/peer relationships through completing their digital narratives. However, there is little study on the effect of multimedia features in digital narratives on the engagement level of people. This research focuses on measuring the levels of engagement of people in digital narratives and specifically on understanding the media effect of digital narratives on people's engagement levels. Measurement tools are developed and validated through analyses of facial data from different age groups (children and young adults) in watching stories with different media features of digital narratives. Data sources used in this research include a questionnaire with Smileyometer scale and the observation of each participant's facial behaviours

Listening and remembering: networked off-line improvisation for four commuters

This paper analyses the experience of the networked off-line improvisation 'Listening and Remembering', a performance for four commuters using voices and sounds from the Mexico City and Paris metros. It addresses the question: how can an act of collective remembering, inspired by listening to metro soundscapes, lead to the creation of networked voice- and sound-based narratives about the urban commuting experience? The networked experience is seen here from the structural perspective (telematic setting), the sonic underground context, the ethnographic process that led to the performance, the narratives that are created in the electro-acoustic setting, the shared acoustic environments that those creations suggest, and the technical features and participants' responses that prevent or facilitate interaction. Emphasis is placed on the participants' status as non-performers, and on their familiarity with the sonic environment, as a context that allows the participation of non-musicians in the making of music through telematically shared interfaces, using soundscape and real-time voice. Participants re-enact their routine experience through a dialogical relation- ship with the sounds, the other participants, themselves, and the experience of sharing: a collective memory

Enhanced reality live role playing

Live role-playing is a form of improvisational theatre played for the experience of the performers and without an audience. These games form a challenging application domain for ubiquitous technology. We discuss the design options for enhanced reality live role-playing and the role of technology in live role-playing games

Emergent Landscape: Urban Shadow Space, Illuminated

This study defines a new approach to the transformation of unmaintained land within cities, or urban shadow space. Although urban shadow space can offer a place of free expression for the community and spontaneous vegetative growth within a city, it is often dismissed as blighted land by public authority. This study maximizes existing opportunities of these spaces, illuminating a realm of the city that is currently dark to the public eye. A proposed set of guidelines is utilized in the creation of three alternative designs that illustrate the emergent landscape, a sensitively designed, evolving landscape that encourages user interaction with the site. These guidelines and the results of their application are intended to assist design professionals who wish to move beyond the typical “clean and green” strategy currently employed by many municipalities to embrace a site’s existing characteristics

DocuDrama

This paper presents an approach combining concepts of virtual storytelling with cooperative processes. We will describe why storytelling is relevant in cooperation support applications. We will outline how storytelling concepts provide a new quality for groupware applications. Different prototypes illustrate a combination of a groupware application with various storytelling components in a Theatre of Work

The Many Lives — and Faces — of Lex Mercatoria: History as Genealogy in International Business Law

It has been claimed that cross-border business transactions are governed by a transnational body of norms specific to international trade, generally known as lex mercatoria, the law merchant. This legal phenomenon is in fact often described as the new lex mercatoria, as distinguished from the ancient law merchant, which purportedly flourished in medieval and early modern Europe. Here, Hatzimihail discusses about lex mercatoria, which has been variously described by its advocates as a set of general principles and customary rules spontaneously referred to or elaborated in the framework of international trade

Narrative comprehension and production in children with SLI: An eye movement study

This study investigates narrative comprehension and production in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Twelve children with SLI (mean age 5; 8 years) and 12 typically developing children (mean age 5; 6 years) participated in an eye-tracking experiment designed to investigate online narrative comprehension and production in Catalan- and Spanish-speaking children with SLI. The comprehension task involved the recording of eye movements during the visual exploration of successive scenes in a story, while listening to the associated narrative. With regard to production, the children were asked to retell the story, while once again looking at the scenes, as their eye movements were monitored. During narrative production, children with SLI look at the most semantically relevant areas of the scenes fewer times than their age-matched controls, but no differences were found in narrative comprehension. Moreover, the analyses of speech productions revealed that children with SLI retained less information and made more semantic and syntactic errors during retelling. Implications for theories that characterize SLI are discussed