Narrative macrostructure of Croatian 5–7-year-old preschoolers: the effects of receptive vocabulary, sentence comprehension and age

Abstract

Narrative skills start to develop during the preschool years. Significant growth in story structure and complexity is expected in older preschoolers, especially in the years just before they start school. This study aims to examine narrative macrostructure of Croatian preschoolers and the association between their core language skills and age on one side and narrative production abilities on the other side during the final preschool year (~ age of 6), when language and narrative skills develop rapidly. Receptive language skills were measured using standardized tests adapted for Croatian (PPVT-III-HR, TROG-2: HR) while narrative production was assessed through two macrostructure measures: story structure and episodic complexity (Croatian MAIN). The results show that the children primarily focus on objective events, such as attempts and outcomes, in their storytelling. They less frequently include goals, character intentions, perspectives, or internal states, showing a continued asymmetry between describing events and explaining causes and effects, especially those connected to the internal states of characters. Regarding episodic complexity, the children’s narratives rarely contain complete episodic structures. The results also showed that receptive vocabulary, sentence comprehension, and age did not predict story structure. Other factors (such as task type, language, culture, the educational context, or expressive language skills) may have a greater effect on narrative production than these factors. The results highlight the need to research different contexts and conduct longitudinal and cross-linguistic studies to determine what is universal in narrative development and what may be attributed to other factors.