Multilingual Assessment Instrument for

Narratives (MAIN)

Ayushi
Ayushka
Bhavya
Gauri Khurana
 Content
1. Introduction

2. Theoretical Background

3. Development of Tasks

4. Administration and Scoring

 About MAIN
The Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) was developed
within the framework of the COST Action IS0804 Language Impairment in a
Multilingual Society: Linguistic Patterns and the Road to Assessment.

MAIN is a part of LITMUS (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings)

battery.

It was constructed to assess the narrative production and comprehension skills of

children from 3 to 10 years.

The present version of the MAIN has been pilot-tested for 15 different language
pairs with more than 500 children, including more than 250 bilingual children

Ayushi Das 22/891

 Bilingual Children
Bilinguals include children who acquire two languages at home (e.g. from
parents speaking different languages, or from parents speaking one language
and the primary caretaker speaking another language), as well as children who
acquire one language at home and another language outside the home, e.g. in
preschool (sequential or successive bilinguals).
 Bilingual Children
Bilingual children are increasing, particularly in Europe, which
has experienced significant migrations in recent decades. In
2010, 214 million migrants were documented, with millions
coming to Europe. In 2007, over 18.5 million immigrants from
outside the EU legally settled in 27 EU countries.

South Africa, with its diverse cultural

and linguistic landscape, has 11 official The Eurobarometer Survey shows that 56% of EU
languages among its 50 million inhabitants. Member States' citizens speak at least one
However, many children receive an education language in addition to their mother tongue, with
through English as a second language, leading 28% speaking two foreign languages. The most
to poor academic performance and poor popular second languages are English, French,
performance on standardized tests. German, Russian, and Spanish.
 Challenges
Distinguishing between typically developing and language-impaired children

Clinicians and educators are faced with a lack of appropriate assessment tools for
differential diagnosis. Moreover, no appropriate assessment tools are available for the
languages these children speak.

Estimates of the prevalence of speech and/or language delay are highly variable, ranging
from 2% to 25% in preschool children (Law, Boyle, Harris, Harkness, & Nye, 2000).

Misdiagnosis may be an overdiagnosis or less commonly, underdiagnosis which may result

from a lack of appropriate tools and norms for assessing language delay and impairment
in one or more of a child’s languages.
 MAIN
There is a growing need for a reliable narrative assessment instrument for bilingual
children, which not only taps language-specific but also language-general skills.

The researcher intended to develop materials for the assessment of narratives in

both languages of bilingual children to screen and identify children at risk for
Specific Language Impairment (SLI).

The main objective of this research network was to profile bilingual SLI by
coordinating research on the linguistic and cognitive abilities of bilingual children
with SLI across different migrant communities. The project had four working groups:
i) morphosyntax and complex syntax, ii) lexical and phonological abilities, iii)
executive functions, and iv) narrative and discourse abilities.
 Narratives
The design of the MAIN allows for the elicitation of narratives in three modes: i) story
generation (telling), ii) retelling, and iii) telling after listening to a model story. A set of
comprehension questions that focus on macrostructure components and internal state
terms also forms part of the assessment procedure.

MAIN contains four parallel stories, each with a carefully designed six-picture sequence.
The stories are controlled for cognitive and linguistic complexity, parallelism in
macrostructure and microstructure, as well as for cultural appropriateness and
robustness.
Different types of narratives (Hughes, McGillvray, & Schmidek, 1997) offer a
platform for examining a wide range of linguistic abilities in context. These
abilities include story structure, discourse features (e.g. coherence and cohesion),
morphosyntax, complex syntax, lexis, and uniquely bilingual phenomena such as
code-switching and code interference.

Children’s narratives also provide an index of their cognitive, semantic, and social abilities
(Liles, 1993).
 Narratives
Narrative analysis is considered by researchers and clinicians to be an ecologically valid way
to investigate communicative competence (Botting, 2002) and to be less biased against
bilingual children than norm-referenced assessment tools (Paradis, Genesee, & Crago, 2010).

Narrative skills are important for later success in school, e.g. in literacy and for
comprehension of the language of mathematics (Bishop & Edmundson, 1987; Bliss, McCabe,
& Miranda, 1998; McCabe, 1996; McCabe & Rollins, 1994; Walach, 2008; Westby, 1991).

Narrative skills form a bridge between oral language and literacy by providing exposure to
and experience in using extended, contextualized, cohesive discourse units and abstract texts
that children will encounter in written texts (Hadley, 1998; Westby, 2005). Discourse is the
main linguistic medium through which academic information is disseminated and acquired.

Discourse knowledge was identified by the RAND study group Reading for Understanding:
Toward a Research & Development Program in Reading Comprehension (Snow 2002) as one
of seven critical components that directly or indirectly influence language and reading
comprehension and account for the variability in reading achievement of individual children.
 Theoretical Background: MAIN
(Multilingual Assessment Instrument
for Narratives)

Bhavya Singh (22/894)

Narrative Elicitation and Structure
One way to evaluate bilingual language skills is through narrative discourse (storytelling).
Telling a story requires the use of various grammatical, pragmatic, and cognitive skills, which
makes it a valuable way to assess language abilities.
History and Overview
There are various ways to collect and analyze narratives, such as spontaneous stories, scripted
ones, or personal stories. The methods of eliciting these narratives differ, including story
generation (telling) or story retelling.
Two Levels in Narratives:
Microstructure: This focuses on the finer details like sentence structure, length, and connectors
(words that link ideas).
Macrostructure: This is about the larger organization of the story, like how episodes are
connected and the overall structure. It's considered language-independent because it focuses on
the universal way stories are structured.
Unified Framework: While most narrative assessments focus on specific areas like vocabulary or
grammar, MAIN combines both microstructure and macrostructure in one framework to assess
narrative competence comprehensively.
 Macrostructure

Structural Internal State Comprehension

Story Structure
complexity Terms
Macrostructure : Story Structure
Based on the Story Grammar Model (e.g., Mandler, 1979; Stein & Glenn, 1979), this framework posits that
stories follow a universal structure including a setting and episode structure. This model has been widely
used across different populations, including bilingual children and those with language impairments.
MAIN divides narratives into three short episodes. Each episode consists of key components:
i. Goal: What the protagonist wants to achieve.
ii. Attempt: The effort to achieve the goal.
iii. Outcome: The result of the attempt.
iv. Internal States: The protagonist’s thoughts, emotions, or reactions.
Example: In a story where a character tries to retrieve a ball, the goal is to get the ball, the attempt is
reaching for it, and the outcome is whether they succeed or fail. The internal states could involve feelings of
frustration or happiness.
 Macrostructure : Structural
Complexity
Structural complexity refers to how well a child can organize and structure episodes in a story. By analyzing the complexity of these
episodes, we can gain insight into the child’s level of narrative development, which helps compare storytelling skills across languages.
MAIN uses Westby’s binary decision tree as a framework for assessing episode structure. The episodes in a story are classified into three
levels of complexity:
Sequences: These are the simplest form of episodes where no goal statement is present. The child might just describe actions or events
without a clear goal.
Incomplete Episodes: In this level, there is a goal statement (what the protagonist wants to achieve) but one or more components are
missing, such as:
The Attempt (A) – the action the protagonist takes to achieve the goal.
The Outcome (O) – the result or effect of the attempt.
Complete Episodes: These episodes include all three components, known as GAO:
Goal (G): What the protagonist aims to do.
Attempt (A): The actions the protagonist takes.
Outcome (O): The result or consequence of those actions.

Why Structural Complexity Matters?

Producing well-formed, complete episodes (GAO) shows that a child understands narrative schema (the mental structure for organizing
information in a story), causality (how actions lead to outcomes), and perspective-taking (understanding others' viewpoints). This ability
also reflects meta-awareness, or the ability to plan and understand the purpose behind characters' actions and decisions.
 Macrostructure : Internal State
Terms
Internal State Terms are words that reflect characters' emotions, thoughts, intentions, and motivations (e.g., want, think,
sad, angry). They demonstrate a child's ability to understand and convey the internal world of characters, an important
part of narrative comprehension They help measure a child’s theory of mind (ToM), which is the ability to understand
others’ emotions, thoughts, and intentions. The more a child uses these terms, the better they are at interpreting
intentionality and goal-directed behavior.

Examples:
Perceptual State Terms: "The cat saw the birds."
Emotion Terms: "The boy was sad."
Physiological State Terms: "The fox was hungry."
Mental Verbs: "The cat wanted to get the fish."

In MAIN, internal state terms are analyzed both in narrative production and comprehension. They provide insight into a
child’s ability to understand characters' goals, emotions, and intentions, which is crucial for comparing bilingual children
across languages.
Macrostructure : Comprehension
Importance of Comprehension: Assessing how well a child comprehends the story’s structure and
characters' internal states helps distinguish between typically developing bilingual children and those with
language impairments. After a child narrates a story, they answer 10 questions focused on the goals and
internal states of characters. For example:
Goal Questions: "Why does the bird fly away?"
Internal State Questions: "How does the fox feel?" If the child doesn’t provide enough detail, follow-up
questions are asked to probe for more explanation.

One question targets inference and ToM, asking the child to infer meaning based on characters' actions and
thoughts, such as "Who does the mother goat like best, the fox or the bird? Why?"
Microstructure
Microstructure refers to the finer details of
language used in narratives, focusing on
the grammar, vocabulary, and syntactic
elements that help children create coherent
discourse. The elements are language-
specific and can vary widely across
languages
 Microstructure
Microstructure includes various linguistic aspects such as:
Length and Lexis: The total number of words used, the different words (vocabulary) the speaker
uses, and how long the sentences are.
Morphosyntax: The way words are structured in sentences, including grammar like verb tenses or
noun agreements.
Discourse and Bilingual Phenomena: How children link ideas in stories and bilingual-specific
issues like code-switching (switching between languages mid-sentence)
 Microstructure
Differences in SLI and Typical Language Development (TLD):
Children with SLI (Specific Language Impairment) show distinct patterns in their narratives compared to typically
developing (TLD) children, particularly in the following areas:
Verbosity/Story Length: SLI children tend to produce shorter stories with fewer details.
Syntactic Complexity: They have difficulty constructing complex sentences, such as using subordinate clauses.
Topic Maintenance and Referencing: SLI children may struggle to maintain the topic and appropriately reference
characters or events.
Grammatical Errors: Higher occurrence of verb morphology errors (e.g., incorrect tenses) and case marking issues (in
languages like German and Russian).
Lexical Richness: Their vocabulary tends to be more limited, with fewer descriptive words and complex noun phrases.
For Bilingual Children: Studies have shown that bilingual children with SLI often have difficulties in both languages.
For example, they may struggle with verb endings or case marking in both of their languages.
 Microstructure
Key Microstructure Measures to Diagnose SLI

To help identify SLI in children's narratives, researchers use specific microstructure measures. These can highlight
differences between typically developing children and those with language impairments.
1. A. Narrative Length and Lexis:
Total Words (Tokens): The total number of words spoken, including any false starts or corrections.
Number of Different Words: How varied the vocabulary is.
Communication Units (CUs): The number of complete ideas or sentences.
2. B. Syntactic Complexity and Discourse Cohesion:
Mean Length of CUs (MCLU): The average length of sentences or ideas in the child’s story.
Use of Verb-Based Clauses: How often and how well the child uses verbs to form sentences.
Subordinate Constructions: Sentences that include clauses like "because" or "when."
Coordinating Constructions: Linking ideas with conjunctions (but not simple ones like "and").
3. C. Bilingualism:
Code-Switching: How often a child switches between languages when telling a story, which can indicate language
difficulty if used inappropriately.
 Development of Tasks
Elicitation tasks: Telling (story generation) and retelling
In Telling format:
- The child generates an original story without a prior script.
- Allows for greater freedom of imagination.
- Reflects the child’s independent vocabulary (lexis) and narrative skills.
In Retelling format:
- Involves reconstructing and reinterpreting an existing story, not simply
repeating it.
- Provides insight into how children adapt and integrate vocabulary, grammar,
and story content from a given narrative.
- Offers information on children's ability to modify and internalize story elements.

Gauri Khurana
22/902
Model Story format:
- The child listens to a story in their home language without
retelling it.
- After listening, the child answers comprehension questions about
the story.
- The child then creates a new story using picture prompts.
- Comprehension questions are also answered for the new story.
- Involves producing only two narratives: one in each language.
 Development of stimulus pictures
A review of major narrative assessment instruments using picture stimuli
highlighted tools like the Renfrew Bus Story, Test of Narrative Language (TNL),
Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument (ENNI), Hamburg Procedure for the
Analysis of Language Proficiency in Five-year-olds (HAVAS 5)

These tools may not be suitable for children from diverse cultural and socio-
economic backgrounds and lack sufficient parallel stimuli for bilingual
assessments. To address these limitations, four six-picture sequences were
developed, tailored for children aged 3 to 9, focusing on their linguistic and
cognitive abilities. The design employed a 2x2 factorial approach involving
Language (L1/L2) and Task (Telling or Retelling stories), with sequences clearly
depicting actions.
Content development was based on
the components of story grammar
Initiating events,
character’s goals,
attempts to reach the goal,
outcomes of the attempts and
reactions following the outcomes.

Instructions to the illustrator ensured that these components were explicitly portrayed in
the pictures. For example, to portray the goal of the cat in the Baby Birds story, the cat’s
facial expression, gaze direction and movements towards the birds convey its intention
to jump, while the baby birds’ facial expression and gaze and the mother’s
protective stance portray anxiety. The four picture sequences – Baby Birds and Baby
Goats; Cat and Dog – are all matched for the number of main protagonists and GAO
sequences.
The study controlled several factors in the pictorial content of the stories:
Number of protagonists: Each picture focused on the main protagonist,
with additional characters introduced gradually.
Timing of character appearance: The second protagonist was only
partially visible in the second picture, suggesting a process of entry.
Plurality: The number of characters was consistent across related
stories (e.g., two baby birds, two baby goats).
Background details: Minimal background details were included to
avoid distractions.
In summary, the pictorial content was controlled for macrostructure,
characters and their actions and feelings as well as cultural
appropriateness and robustness. These controls ensured a clear focus on
the primary content and structure of the stories, making them culturally
appropriate and robust for young children.
Episode 1: Bird Goal – to feed
the baby birds
Episode 1: Bird Attempt – flies
away to get food
Episode 2: Cat Goal – to get the
baby bird(s)

Episode 1: Bird Outcome – returns with food

Episode 2: Cat Attempt – climbs the tree to
catch a baby bird
Episode 2: Cat Outcome – catches the baby
bird
Episode 3: Dog Goal – to save the baby bird(s)
Episode 3: Dog Attempt –
bites, pulls the cat’s tail
Episode 3:Dog Outcome –
chases the cat away / the cat
runs off
Cat stimulus pictures (story retelling model)
Baby Goats stimulus pictures (Gülzow & Gagarina,
2007)
Dog stimulus pictures (story retelling
Administration
and scoring

Ayushka Tanwar(22/892)
 Guidelines for Assessment
Suitable for bilingual and monolingual children aged 3 to 10.
Assesses both comprehension and production of narratives.
Allows for Three elicitation modes: Model Story, Retelling, Telling
Flexible procedure depending on assessment goals.
Bilingual children: assess each language 4-7 days apart to avoid cross-language
influence.
Use different examiners for each language to reduce code-switching and promote a
monolingual context. Code-switching is the practice of alternating between two or
more languages or language varieties in conversation. It often occurs in bilingual or
multilingual speakers, who may switch languages depending on the context,
audience, or even specific topics.
 Materials needed
BB, BG, Cat, and Dog (3 copies of each story in separate
4 picture sequences
envelopes – 12 envelopes in total).
2 for each language (cat and dog, baby bird and baby
story scripts
goat should not be taken as together

recording equipment Audio or video recording for analysis

For macrostructure analysis, internal state terms, and

scoring protocols
comprehension questions.

background questions Parental questionnaire for additional context.

 Preparing material for
assessment
Download Pictures from zas.gwz-berlin.de.
Print each PDF file (picture sequence/story) three times in color on A4 paper
Number the pictures (1-6) on the back.
Cut out the two rows of pictures.
Paste pictures into a 6-picture strip and fold twice:
Picture 1, picture 2, fold, picture 3, picture 4, fold, picture 5, picture 6.
Place each 6-picture strip into a separate envelope, marked by color or
distinguishing marks (e.g., dots) to identify the story.
Conduction
Familiarize
Yourself
Ensure thorough
knowledge of the story
protocols and
instructions.
Prompts for conduction
Encourage Independence
Prompt the child to start by saying, “Tell me the story” (while pointing to the picture).

Wait for Responses

Allow at least 10 seconds of silence before giving any prompts.
If still silent, use gentle prompts like “Okay…”, “Well…”, or “Your turn…”
If the child remains silent, prompt with “Tell me what is happening.”
Encourage Continuation
If the child pauses during the story, encourage them to continue with prompts like “Anything else?”,
“Continue”, or “Tell me more.”

Redirect personal stories

If the child shares personal experiences, listen, then gently redirect back to the story in the pictures.
Exclude irrelevant parts from analysis.
Prompts for conduction
Avoid leading questions
Do not ask questions that could disrupt their narration, such as:
“What is he doing here?” or “Who is running?”
“What’s this?” or “What/who do you see in the picture?”
Support expression
Allow the child to refer to characters as they wish; do not correct them.
If they struggle for words, encourage creativity with “You can call it anything you like” or
“What would you call it?”
Use encouragement wisely
Offer words of encouragement like “Good” or “Fine” after each pair of pictures, but avoid
doing so if it disrupts the child’s narrative flow.
 Preparing recording Preparing
equipment warming up phase envelopes
Set up audio/video Establish rapport based
Place three envelopes
containing the same
on your cultural
equipment and environment and
picture sequence on the
table before assessment
begin recording previous experience.
begins.
Engage the child with
before the conversation, ensuring
This presentation method
is designed so the child
warming-up they understand simple
believes the examiner does
wh-questions (who,
phase. what, where, etc.).
not know which story is in
the envelope, controlling
for shared knowledge.
 Administer Model
Presenting
test pictures story/telling
Follow the story Sit opposite the child so they
can hold the pictures facing
protocol themselves. Direct the story
instructions and Ask the child to unfold the
pictures, starting from the first
process: as per
protocols of telling
adhere to the one, and say: “Look at the
pictures but don’t show them to and model story
recommended me. Only YOU must see the
story.”
prompts. If the child struggles, help them
hold and unfold the pictures.
 Comprehension
questions Post session Remember

After the story, ask The list of options in the

Transcribe the scoring sheet is not
comprehension
child’s narrative and exhaustive. Credit is
questions by saying,
score their given when a
“Now I am going to macrostructure
production and
ask you some component (Goal,
questions about the comprehension on Attempt, Outcome,

story.” the scoring sheets. Internal State term) is

expressed by any
appropriate wording.
Counterbalancing procedures
for research purposes
The order of presentation should be counterbalanced with regard to
language and story (Cat/Dog – retelling/model story and BB/BG – telling).
Use the following counterbalancing procedure (if only one language is
tested, then use the randomization procedure for children either number 1,
2, 5 and 6 or number 3, 4, 7 and 8):
Story scripts
The following story scripts are provided to illustrate the framework used
to create narratives with parallel macro- and microstructure and to guide
coding and analysis.
Furthermore, these story scripts should be used for translation and
adaptation to other languages (see Guidelines for adapting the story
scripts to other languages in the next section). The marking of story
structure components and internal state terms in the scripts below is
given in the following way:
Example for scoring
(for baby goats)
Thank you