The Development of Children’s Story Retelling Skills and Their Relationship with Verbal Working Memory

Abstract

Abstract: The present study explored the development of story retelling skills and their relation to verbal working memory in typically developing young Chinese children. Children aged 5~6 years old were asked to retell the story after they listened to a story. The results showed significant age effects and significant developmental trends in the macrostructure and microstructure scores. Also, children’s story retelling skills showed significant gender differences. Moreover, the score of verbal working memory, which had unique contributions to children’s narrative, was significantly correlated to that of various indicators of the macrostructure and microstructure. These results indicate that verbal working memory is an important cognitive factor related to children’s story retelling skills.

Key words: children, story retelling, verbal working memory, macrostructure, microstructure

摘要： 采用语音呈现、无图片辅助的复述任务，探查5～6岁幼儿故事复述能力的发展特点及其与工作记忆的关系。结果发现，幼儿复述能力在学前期存在明显的发展变化，6岁幼儿宏观结构的得分及微观结构中的叙事总词汇数、复句占T单元比率、连词使用总数等均显著好于5岁幼儿；幼儿的复述能力表现出性别差异；工作记忆与复述的宏观结构和微观结构的不同指标之间均表现出显著相关，并对幼儿复述能力的发展具有独立贡献。结果表明，言语工作记忆是与幼儿复述能力相关的重要认知因素。

关键词: 幼儿, 故事复述, 言语工作记忆, 宏观结构, 微观结构

CLC Number:

B842

WANG Song, LI Su. The Development of Children’s Story Retelling Skills and Their Relationship with Verbal Working Memory[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2020, 18(5): 596-602.

王嵩, 李甦. 幼儿复述能力的发展及其与言语工作记忆的关系[J]. 心理与行为研究, 2020, 18(5): 596-602.

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