What question did this study set out to answer?

The study aims to explore how narrative ability relates to cognitive and linguistic factors in children with and without Developmental Language Disorder.

April 11, 2026Open Access

Relationships between Narrative Ability and Working Memory, Sustained Attention, and Verbal Fluency in Early School-Aged Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder

Key Points

The study aims to explore how narrative ability relates to cognitive and linguistic factors in children with and without Developmental Language Disorder.
Assessed narrative ability using story grammar scores from generation and retelling tasks.
Compared 13 children with DLD and 25 typically developing children.
Measured working memory (word-list recall), sustained attention (TrackIt), and verbal fluency (semantic and phonemic).
Analyzed group differences and correlations between narrative performance and cognitive measures.
Children with DLD had lower story grammar scores than typically developing peers.
Higher scores were seen in the retell condition across both groups with no significant interaction effects.
DLD group performed worse in word-list recall and semantic fluency without differences in other cognitive tasks.
Significant correlation between retell performance and nonverbal working memory in the DLD group was noted, unlike the generation condition.

Abstract

Objectives: The present study examined narrative performance in children with and without Developmental Langauge Disorder (DLD) and explored cognitive–linguistic factors associated with narrative generation and retelling.Methods: Participants were 13 early school-aged children with DLD and 25 typically developing children. Narrative ability was assessed using story grammar scores derived from narrative generation and retelling tasks. Cognitive and linguistic measures included verbal and nonverbal working memory (wordlist recall and symmetric–asymmetric matrices), selective sustained attention (TrackIt), and verbal fluency (semantic and phonemic fluency). Group differences were examined, and correlations between narrative performance and cognitive–linguistic variables were analyzed separately for each narrative condition.Results: Children with DLD demonstrated significantly lower story grammar scores than typically developing children in both narrative conditions. Both groups produced higher story grammar scores in the retell condition with no significant group×condition interaction. The DLD group showed significantly poorer performance in word-list recall and semantic fluency, whereas no group differences were found for other cognitive measures. Correlation analyses revealed no significant associations between narrative performance and cognitive–linguistic measures in the DLD group, except for a significant association between retell performance and nonverbal working memory. In the typically developing group, narrative performance in the retell condition was significantly associated with language composite scores and word-list recall, whereas no significant correlations were observed in the generation condition.Conclusion: These findings suggest that narrative abilities in children with and without DLD are differentially associated with linguistic and working memory factors depending on narrative task demands, highlighting the importance of considering task characteristics when examining narrative performance.

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