Speech and Hearing Science

             There were several similarities and differences of the macrostructure and the microstructure of the four stories. After reading all four stories the development of narrative skills is easily understood. The stories that were told by the 3, 5, and 9 year olds were very similar. In these stories the children tend to use the word "and" almost all the time to start their sentences. The 5 and 9 year olds like to show emotion a lot in their stories. For example, the five year old says, "And then when he saw that he crawled out, he was sad." And the nine year old said, "Tom was very worried, so he got dressed." The 5 and 9 year olds also spoke of the frogs having babies without seeing anything sexual. For example, the five year old said, "And then they saw the frog had married another frog, and had some baby frogs." And the nine year old said, "And then he looked over there they had babies." The three year old spoke of the frog being with his other frog friends, not knowing or thinking about babies and getting married. .
             There were also several differences in the grammar. The three year olds story had sentences that were very short and to the point but really didn't make sense. For example, the three year old said, "And then the other frog." There was also a lot of missing words and pauses in the story where the child did not know what to say. For example, the three year old said, "And um he this dog looking into the bowl." The nine year olds story was very different from the three and five year old stories. In this story the child gave the main characters names instead of calling them boy, dog, and frog. You can tell that the child had gotten used to hearing stories and telling stories by the way the child started the story very different from the other two children. " It was one dark night." In this story the child put in parts of the story where characters were talking. For example, he says, "He called George where are you.