"A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, June 30, 2010."Includes bibliographical references (p. 27-30).Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 2010.Aim: This study aimed to examine the clinical usefulness of four cohesive measures in describing
Cantonese-speaking preschool children’s narrative ability.
Method: A total of 90 typically-developing Cantonese–speaking children aged from 3;00 to 6;00
were recruited. Fictional narratives were elicited through story retelling. The measures under
investigation included (1) mean length of utterance (MLU), (2) connectives, (3) modifiers and (4)
referencing.
Results: All the four measures demonstrated satisfactory to good scoring reliability with MLU
showing the lowest agreement. Each measure demonstrated statistically significant growth across
age groups but with different rate of development. The measure of referencing was found to be
the most developmentally sensitive and followed by modifiers.
Conclusions: The feasibilities of using each measure to describe preschool children’s language in
clinical practice were discussed. This study may pave the way to the development of a largerscale
standardized assessment tools in the future.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science
