Comparative Study of Story Coherence in Persian Speaking Children with Specific Language Impairment and Normal Development

Children with specific language impairment have shown specific defects in story coherence. The present study investigated story coherence in Persian speaking children with specific language impairment and normal development.
This study is cross-sectional. Samples are 50 children with normal development and 10 children with specific language impairment. Children with language impairment had normal hearing, nonverbal IQ, and emotional status. Their language impairment detected by test of language development. Single-episode story (A1) and three-episode story (A3) were elicited and transcripted by using of Persian Narrative Norms Instrument. The story scored based on coherence elements. In both transcription and scoring stages, the percent agreement between inter-rater were calculated. To compare scores of the stories and episodes between two groups of children, Independent t-test and Mann-whitney test were applied.
In children with normal development, percent agreement in transcription obtained 100%.Percent agreement of scoring in "A1" and "A3" respectively were 96% and 94.51%. The mean of scores of both "A1" and "A3" story were significantly different (p=0.00) between two groups. Two groups were also significantly different (p=0.00) in different episodes of "A3" story.
Children with specific language impairment has score lower than children with normal development in Coherence.