{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,5]],"date-time":"2026-10-05T11:05:46Z","timestamp":1791198346014,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":59,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,27]],"date-time":"2023-02-27T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1677456000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004377","name":"Hong Kong Polytechnic University","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["P0014049"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["P0014049"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004377","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title><jats:p>The ability to produce a well-structured, coherent and informative narrative requires the integration of lexical and grammatical skills at different levels of complexity. Investigating how narrative macrostructure competence is predicted by microstructural linguistic skills is conceptually enlightening; yet there have been very few, if any, studies documenting the associations between macrostructure and microstructure in both languages of the same bilinguals. In this paper we attempt to address this research gap and report on the first empirical study of Urdu-Cantonese bilingual children\u2019s narrative abilities, bringing in data from a new language pair that is currently understudied.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>Twenty-four bilinguals (mean age\u2009=\u20099.17\u2009years) acquiring Urdu as first, family and heritage minority language, and Cantonese as second, school and majority language were assessed<jats:italic>via<\/jats:italic>Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN). We examined these children\u2019s macrostructural competence and its relations to microstructural skills in both languages (Urdu and Cantonese). Three macrostructure components were scored as response variables: Story Structure (SS), Story Complexity (SC), Internal State Terms (IST). Four microstructural measures were scored as predictor variables: number of different words (NDW), mean length of Communication Units (MLCU), proportion of grammatical Communication Units (Gproportion), proportion of correct connectives linking the major episodic elements (Cproportion).<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>In regression analyses, NDW emerged consistently as a positive predictor of SS, SC and IST in both languages. MLCU and NDW were positive predictors of SS in the stronger L1, but NDW was the only positive predictor of SS in L2. By contrast, NDW and an index of syntactic competence (MLCU in L1, but Cproportion in L2) were significant or close-to-significant positive predictors of SC in both languages. NDW was the only positive predictor of IST in both languages. These findings suggested that the relationships between narrative macrostructure and specific microstructural abilities could manifest both similarly and differently between L1 and L2.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title><jats:p>We discuss the findings by considering the unique nature of each macrostructure component and how each component might be related to specific microstructural linguistic skills. We suggest directions for further research and discuss how the current findings bring deeper implications for educators and clinicians in assessment, pedagogy, and intervention.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2023.924056","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,27]],"date-time":"2023-02-27T07:51:16Z","timestamp":1677484276000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["Story telling in bilingual Urdu\u2212Cantonese ethnic minority children: Macrostructure and its relation to microstructural linguistic skills"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Angel","family":"Chan","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sarah","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Saboor","family":"Hamdani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Bernard","family":"Tse","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kelly","family":"Cheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"165","DOI":"10.1017\/S0142716415000466","article-title":"Macrostructure, microstructure, and mental state terms in the narratives of English-Hebrew bilingual preschool children with and without specific language impairment","volume":"37","author":"Altman","year":"2016","journal-title":"Appl. Psycholinguist."},{"key":"ref2","volume-title":"The child\u2019s concept of a story","author":"Applebee","year":"1978"},{"key":"ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"291","DOI":"10.1075\/lab.1.3.04arm","article-title":"The impact of internal and external factors on linguistic performance in the home language and in L2 among Russian\u2013Hebrew and Russian\u2013German preschool children","volume":"1","author":"Armon-Lotem","year":"2011","journal-title":"Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism"},{"key":"ref4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"52","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jcomdis.2017.12.001","article-title":"Retelling stories: grammatical and lexical measures for identifying monolingual Spanish speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI)","volume":"71","author":"Auza","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. Commun. Disord."},{"key":"ref5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1093\/oso\/9780195080056.001.0001","volume-title":"Children talk about the mind","author":"Bartsch","year":"1995"},{"key":"ref6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"498","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jcomdis.2010.05.002","article-title":"Language sample measures and language ability in Spanish-English bilingual kindergarteners","volume":"43","author":"Bedore","year":"2010","journal-title":"J. Commun. Disord."},{"key":"ref7","volume-title":"Relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic developmental study","author":"Berman","year":"1994"},{"key":"ref8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"25","DOI":"10.1348\/026151004X20685","article-title":"The role of syntax in encoding and recall of pictorial narratives: evidence from specific language impairment","volume":"23","author":"Bishop","year":"2005","journal-title":"Br. J. Dev. Psychol."},{"key":"ref9","first-page":"xiii","article-title":"Introduction to MAIN\u2013revised, how to use the instrument and adapt it to further languages","volume-title":"ZAS papers in linguistics","author":"Bohnacker","year":"2020"},{"key":"ref10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"120","DOI":"10.1017\/S0305000917000149","article-title":"In few words: linguistic gap but adequate narrative structure in preschool bilingual children","volume":"45","author":"Bonifacci","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. Child Lang."},{"key":"ref11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"132","DOI":"10.1044\/0161-1461(2011\/10-0101)","article-title":"Dialect-neutral indices of narrative cohesion and evaluation","volume":"43","author":"Burns","year":"2012","journal-title":"Lang. Speech Hear. Serv. Sch."},{"key":"ref12","first-page":"23","article-title":"The multilingual assessment instrument for narratives (MAIN): adding Cantonese to MAIN","volume-title":"ZAS papers in linguistics","author":"Chan","year":"2020"},{"key":"ref13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"121","DOI":"10.1080\/00223890802634175","article-title":"The analysis of count data: a gentle introduction to Poisson regression and its alternatives","volume":"91","author":"Coxe","year":"2009","journal-title":"J. Pers. Assess."},{"key":"ref14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1432","DOI":"10.1044\/jslhr.4206.1432","article-title":"Maternal education and measures of early speech and language","volume":"42","author":"Dollaghan","year":"1999","journal-title":"J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res."},{"key":"ref15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"20","DOI":"10.1044\/0161-1461(2012\/11-0089)","article-title":"Differentiating children with and without language impairment based on grammaticality","volume":"44","author":"Eisenberg","year":"2013","journal-title":"Lang. Speech Hear. Serv. Sch."},{"key":"ref16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"20","DOI":"10.1177\/0142723711422633","article-title":"Mindful storytellers: emerging pragmatics and theory of mind development","volume":"33","author":"Fernandez","year":"2013","journal-title":"First Lang."},{"key":"ref17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"155","DOI":"10.1044\/0161-1461(2004\/016)","article-title":"Narrative discourse in bilingual children: language and task effects","volume":"35","author":"Fiestas","year":"2004","journal-title":"Lang. Speech Hear. Serv. Sch."},{"key":"ref18","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"168","DOI":"10.21248\/zaspil.62.2019.448","article-title":"Identifying early preschool bilinguals at risk of DLD: a composite profile of narrative and sentence repetition skills","volume":"62","author":"Gagarina","year":"","journal-title":"ZAS Papers in Linguistics"},{"key":"ref19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"243","DOI":"10.21832\/9781783093137-011","article-title":"Assessment of narrative abilities in bilingual children","volume-title":"Assessing multilingual children: Disentangling bilingualism from language impairment","author":"Gagarina","year":"2015"},{"key":"ref20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.21248\/zaspil.63.2019.516","article-title":"MAIN: multilingual assessment instrument for narratives-revised","volume":"63","author":"Gagarina","year":"2019","journal-title":"ZAS Papers in Linguistics"},{"key":"ref21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.21248\/zaspil.63.2019.516","article-title":"MAIN: multilingual assessment instrument for narratives-revised","volume-title":"ZAS papers in linguistics (ZASPiL)","author":"Gagarina","year":""},{"key":"ref22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.21248\/zaspil.63.2019.516","article-title":"MAIN: Multilingual assessment instrument for narratives-revised","volume-title":"ZAS papers in linguistics (ZASPiL)","author":"Gagarina","year":""},{"key":"ref23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"11","DOI":"10.1017\/S0142716415000399","article-title":"Narrative abilities in bilingual children","volume":"37","author":"Gagarina","year":"2016","journal-title":"Appl. Psycholinguist."},{"key":"ref24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"392","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-2909.118.3.392","article-title":"Regression analyses of counts and rates: Poisson, overdispersedover dispersed Poisson, and negative binomial models","volume":"118","author":"Gardner","year":"1995","journal-title":"Psychol. Bull."},{"key":"ref25","volume-title":"Cohesion in English","author":"Halliday","year":"1976"},{"key":"ref26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"257","DOI":"10.21248\/zaspil.64.2020.580","article-title":"The multilingual assessment instrument for narratives (MAIN): adding Urdu to MAIN","volume":"64","author":"Hamdani","year":"2020","journal-title":"ZAS Papers in Linguistics"},{"key":"ref27","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"603","DOI":"10.1177\/0265532209355669","article-title":"Sensitivity of narrative organization measures using narrative retells produced by young school-age children","volume":"27","author":"Heilmann","year":"2010","journal-title":"Lang. Test."},{"key":"ref28","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"343","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cogpsych.2010.08.002","article-title":"Sources of variability in children\u2019s language growth","volume":"61","author":"Huttenlocher","year":"2010","journal-title":"Cogn. Psychol."},{"key":"ref29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"177","DOI":"10.1044\/1058-0360(2006\/017)","article-title":"The index of narrative microstructure: a clinical tool for analyzing school-aged children\u2019s narrative performances","volume":"15","author":"Justice","year":"2006","journal-title":"Am. J. Speech Lang. Pathol."},{"key":"ref30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"573780","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2020.573780","article-title":"Investigating Children\u2019s narrative abilities in a Chinese and multilingual context: Cantonese, mandarin, Kam and Urdu adaptations of the multilingual assessment instrument for narratives (MAIN)","volume":"11","author":"Kan","year":"2020","journal-title":"Front. Psychol.: Language Sciences."},{"key":"ref31","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1117","DOI":"10.1017\/S014271641500051X","article-title":"Cognitive, linguistic, and contextual factors in Norwegian second language learner\u2019s narrative production","volume":"37","author":"Karlsen","year":"2016","journal-title":"Appl. Psycholinguist."},{"key":"ref32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"40","DOI":"10.1075\/ni.24.1.03kup","article-title":"The development of coherence and cohesion in monolingual and sequential bilingual children\u2019s narratives","volume":"24","author":"Kupersmitt","year":"2014","journal-title":"Narrat. Inq."},{"key":"ref33","volume-title":"Language in the inner city: Studies of black English vernacular","author":"Labov","year":"1972"},{"key":"ref34","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"415","DOI":"10.1044\/jshr.3802.415","article-title":"Measurement of narrative discourse ability in children with language disorders","volume":"38","author":"Liles","year":"1995","journal-title":"J. Speech Hear. Res."},{"key":"ref35","volume-title":"Language development: Kindergarten through grade twelve","author":"Loban","year":"1976"},{"key":"ref36","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"24","DOI":"10.1177\/0142723713511000","article-title":"The development of narrative productivity, syntactic complexity, referential cohesion and event content in four\u2013 to eight\u2013year\u2013old Finnish children","volume":"34","author":"M\u00e4kinen","year":"2014","journal-title":"First Lang."},{"key":"ref37","first-page":"293","article-title":"Organization and repetition: organization principles with special reference to rote learning","volume-title":"Perspectives on memory research","author":"Mandler","year":"1979"},{"key":"ref38","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"69","DOI":"10.1017\/S0142716415000429","article-title":"Macrostructure components in narrations of Turkish\u2013German bilingual children","volume":"37","author":"Mavi\u015f","year":"2016","journal-title":"Appl. Psycholinguist."},{"key":"ref39","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"169","DOI":"10.1016\/S0003-2670(01)01040-6","article-title":"Detection of single influential points in OLS regression model building","volume":"439","author":"Meloun","year":"2001","journal-title":"Anal. Chim. Acta"},{"key":"ref40","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"257","DOI":"10.2307\/1130975","article-title":"Young children\u2019s understanding of the psychological causes of behaviour: a review","volume":"60","author":"Miller","year":"1989","journal-title":"Child Dev."},{"key":"ref001","first-page":"149","article-title":"Preschool children\u2019s narratives and performance on the Peabody Individualized Achievement Test\u2013Revised: Evidence of a relation between early narrative and later mathematical ability","volume-title":"First Language","author":"O\u2019Neill","year":"2004"},{"key":"ref41","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1017\/S0142716415000387","article-title":"Perspectives on bilingual children\u2019s narratives elicitedrefd with the multilingual assessment instrument for narratives","volume":"37","author":"Pesco","year":"2016","journal-title":"Appl. Psycholinguist."},{"key":"ref42","volume-title":"Raven\u2019s standard progressive matrices","author":"Raven","year":"1996"},{"key":"ref43","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"229","DOI":"10.1016\/S0093-934X(03)00101-9","article-title":"\u201cFrog, where are you?\u201d narratives in children with specific language impairment, early focal brain injury, and Williams syndrome","volume":"88","author":"Reilly","year":"2004","journal-title":"Brain Lang."},{"key":"ref44","volume-title":"Bus story test: A test of narrative speech","author":"Renfrew","year":"1997"},{"key":"ref45","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"617","DOI":"10.1177\/1367006916643528","article-title":"Narrative abilities of preschool bilingual Norwegian\u2013Russian children","volume":"21","author":"Rodina","year":"2017","journal-title":"Int. J. Biling."},{"key":"ref46","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"774","DOI":"10.1044\/2019_JSLHR-19-00087","article-title":"Narrative production in mandarin\u2013speaking children: effects of language ability and elicitation method","volume":"63","author":"Sheng","year":"2020","journal-title":"J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res."},{"key":"ref47","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"199","DOI":"10.1016\/S0898-5898(01)00062-6","article-title":"Spanish and English proficiency in the linguistic encoding of mental states in narrative retellings","volume":"13","author":"Silliman","year":"2002","journal-title":"Linguist. Educ."},{"key":"ref48","first-page":"217","article-title":"Oral narratives of 6\u20137 years old Estonian children","volume-title":"Global perspectives in early childhood education: Diversity, challenges and possibilities","author":"Soodla","year":"2011"},{"key":"ref49","first-page":"262","article-title":"The development of children\u2019s storytelling skill","volume-title":"Child language: A reader","author":"Stein","year":"1988"},{"key":"ref50","first-page":"5","article-title":"Building complexity and coherence: Children\u2019s use of goal structured knowledge in telling stories","volume-title":"Narrative development: Six approaches","author":"Stein","year":"1997"},{"key":"ref51","first-page":"53","article-title":"An analysis of story comprehension in elementary school children","volume-title":"New directions in discourse processing","author":"Stein","year":"1979"},{"key":"ref52","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"453","DOI":"10.1080\/02699206.2019.1655097","article-title":"Narrative abilities of mandarin-speaking children with and without specific language impairment: macrostructure and microstructure","volume":"34","author":"Torng","year":"2020","journal-title":"Clinical Linguistics & Phonetic"},{"key":"ref53","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"249","DOI":"10.1080\/01638539209544812","article-title":"The development of goal plans of action in the narration of a picture story","volume":"15","author":"Trabasso","year":"1992","journal-title":"Discourse Process."},{"key":"ref54","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"225","DOI":"10.1044\/0161-1461(2007\/024)","article-title":"Narrative and vocabulary development of bilingual children from kindergarten to first grade: developmental changes and associations among English and Spanish skills","volume":"38","author":"Uccelli","year":"2007","journal-title":"Lang. Speech Hear. Serv. Sch."},{"key":"ref55","first-page":"157","article-title":"Assessing and facilitating text comprehension problems","volume-title":"Language and Reading Disabilities","author":"Westby","year":"2005"},{"key":"ref56","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"178","DOI":"10.3109\/17549500903194125","article-title":"Profiling oral narrative ability in young school\u2013aged children","volume":"12","author":"Westerveld","year":"2010","journal-title":"Int. J. Speech Lang. Pathol."},{"key":"ref57","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"260","DOI":"10.1044\/2017_LSHSS-17-0003","article-title":"The oral narrative comprehension and production abilities of verbal preschoolers on the autism spectrum","volume":"48","author":"Westerveld","year":"2017","journal-title":"Lang. Speech Hear. Serv. Sch."},{"key":"ref58","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"891","DOI":"10.1044\/2015_JSLHR-L-14-0015","article-title":"Development of morphosyntactic accuracy and grammatical complexity in Dutch school-age children with SLI","volume":"58","author":"Zwitserlood","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res."}],"container-title":["Frontiers in Psychology"],"original-title":[],"link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fpsyg.2023.924056\/full","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,7]],"date-time":"2023-12-07T20:22:44Z","timestamp":1701980564000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fpsyg.2023.924056\/full"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,27]]},"references-count":59,"alternative-id":["10.3389\/fpsyg.2023.924056"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fpsyg.2023.924056","relation":{},"ISSN":["1664-1078"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1664-1078","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,27]]},"article-number":"924056"}}