Assessing French-speaking preschool children’s language skills: Comparing personal narrative with conversation during symbolic play

Authors

  • Marianne J. Paul Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
  • Noémie Mercier Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
  • Stéphanie Girard Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
  • Stefano Rezzonico Université de Montréal

Keywords:

discourse, assessment, mean length of utterances, lexical diversity, narrative, preschool

Abstract

This article aims to explore language development abilities by comparing a personal narrative with a sample of 25 utterances extracted from a a conversation during symbolic play. From the 28 French-speaking unilingual children assessed at age 3, 19 were also assessed at age 4. Mean length of the utterance and lexical diversity of the language samples were calculated and the personal narrative structure was identified. The results show an impact of discourse on the sample’s characteristics. Statement mean length is statistically higher in narration at age 3 only. Despite the high variability of the narrative structure’s evolution, the use of personal narrative to assess language from age 3 is conceivable.

Author Biographies

Marianne J. Paul, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

(PhD) is a speech-language pathologist since 2009 and a professor in the Department of speech-language pathology at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières since 2014. Her research projects are mainly related to the development and validation of tasks to assess speech and language skills in French, and to document the language profiles of children with developmental difficulties (e.g., developmental language disorder, autism). Furthermore, she investigates the specificities of bilingual development and their impacts on the identification of developmental language disorder. marianne.paul@uqtr.ca

Noémie Mercier, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

is a speech-language pathologist since 2017. During her contribution to this study, she was a student in the master’s degree of speech-language pathology at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. A part of the presented data comes from her master’s research project. She is currently a speech-language pathologist at the Centre de services scolaire Chemin-du-Roy in Trois-Rivières. She works with primary school-aged children with language difficulties and is an internship supervisor. noemie.mercier@uqtr.ca

Stéphanie Girard, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

, Ph. D. is a professor in the Department of physical activity at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. Holder of the Junior UQTR Research Chair on motivation and inclusion in physical activity, from childhood to adolescence, sh she is interested in creating an inclusive and empowering motivational climate in the various environments where young people are physically active as well as supporting and training the various people who work with them. She also studies the inclusive practices implemented by child-care facilities during the first school transition for children with special needs.

Stefano Rezzonico, Université de Montréal

, Ph. D., is an associate professor at the École d’Orthophonie et Audiologie of the Université de Montréal and a researcher at the CRIR. He is responsible for Communication and Cognition at the Institut Universitaire sur la Réadaptation en Déficience Physique de Montréal of the CIUSSS-du-Centre-Sud-de-l’île-de-Montréal. His research program focuses on how people use language, and the assessment and intervention of pragmatics and discourse in children, adolescents, and young adults. stefano.rezzonico@umontreal.ca

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2025-03-02

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Paul, M. J., Mercier, N., Girard, S., & Rezzonico, S. (2025). Assessing French-speaking preschool children’s language skills: Comparing personal narrative with conversation during symbolic play. McGill Journal of Education / Revue Des Sciences De l’éducation De McGill. Retrieved from https://mje.mcgill.ca/article/view/9996

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