Applying the LUNA Framework and Global TALES Protocol for Analyzing Personal Narratives in a Cross-Linguistic Study of Predominantly English and French-Speaking 9-10-Year-Olds from Canada

Personal narratives, stories about past personal experiences, are closely associated with social, academic, and mental health outcomes. Despite their importance, few validated assessment tools are available for Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) to assess personal narrative abilities. To address this gap, the Global Talking About Lived Experiences in Stories (TALES) Network developed a standardized protocol designed to support cross-cultural and cross-linguistic comparisons. This study examines the feasibility of the Global TALES protocol for eliciting personal narratives from Canadian predominantly English- and French-speaking children and compares their narrative performance across four components of discourse processing derived from the Linguistic Underpinnings of Narrative in Aphasia (LUNA) framework: linguistic, propositional, macrostructure planning, and pragmatic. Using the French or English version of the Global TALES protocol, personal narratives from 40 typically developing children aged 9 to 10 years were collected: 20 English speaking and 20 French speaking. Narrative measures included verbal productivity, lexical diversity, and syntactic complexity at the linguistic level; local coherence at the propositional level; context and chronology at the macrostructure planning level; and narrative topics and theme at the pragmatic level. The Global TALES protocol successfully elicited personal narratives across both language groups (70%–100% across the 6 prompts), and no significant differences were found between groups across all 4 discourse components of the LUNA framework, with inter-rater reliability ranging from 72.5% to 94.3%. These findings support the promise of the Global TALES protocol as a clinically relevant tool for SLPs wanting to assess personal narrative skills, alongside a comprehensive framework, while allowing for cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparisons.