Assessing ‘coherence’ in the spoken narrative accounts of autistic people: A systematic scoping review

Harvey, Anna; Spicer-Cain, Helen; Botting, Nicola; Ryan, Gemma Sinead; Henry, Lucy A.

doi:10.1016/j.rasd.2023.102108

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Of relevance to our purpose is the suggestion that where there are difficulties in the elaboration of narrative coherence that affect at least one of the three dimensions (temporal, 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1409217 Frontiers in Psychology 04 frontiersin.org causal, and thematic) and result in a disrupted autobiographical story, there also appears to be a disruption in the cohesion of the self. Within the clinical literature, this hypothesis has been supported by some studies of the narrative dimension in different psychopathologies, such as schizophrenia (e.g., Raffard et al, 2010;Saavedra, 2010;Allé et al, 2015;Holm et al, 2016;Goldberg, 2023; for a discussion see Lysaker and Lysaker, 2006;Adornetti and Ferretti, 2021;Benítez-Burraco et al, 2023), autism (e.g., Diehl et al, 2006;Goldman, 2008;King et al, 2014;Samra, 2016;Ferretti et al, 2018;Wantzen et al, 2021;Adornetti et al, 2023;Harvey et al, 2023), and personality disorders (e.g., Westen and Cohen, 1993;Bradley and Westen, 2005;Adler et al, 2012;Lind et al, 2019; for a review, see Lind et al, 2020). For example, the findings of Allé et al (2015) revealed that the autobiographical narratives of patients with schizophrenia were less coherent than those of controls in the temporal, causalmotivational, and thematic subcomponents, supporting the link between lower coherence and a disordered structure of the self.…”

Section: Measures Of Narrative Identity 21 Structural Variables: Narr...mentioning

confidence: 85%

Narrative identity in addictive disorders: a conceptual review

Deriu,

Altavilla,

Adornetti

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

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Narrative identity allows individuals to integrate their personal experiences into a coherent and meaningful life story. Addictive disorders appear to be associated with a disturbed sense of self, reflected in problematic and disorganized self-narratives. In recent literature, a growing body of research has highlighted how narrative approaches can make a dual contribution to the understanding of addiction: on the one hand, by revealing crucial aspects of self structure, and, on the other, by supporting the idea that addiction is a disorder related to unintegrated self-states in which dissociative phenomena and the resulting sense of ‘loss of self’ are maladaptive strategies for coping with distress. This conceptual review identified the main measures of narrative identity, i.e., narrative coherence and complexity, agency, and emotions, and critically examines 9 quantitative and qualitative studies (out of 18 identified in literature), that have investigated the narrative dimension in people with an addictive disorder in order to provide a synthesis of the relationship between self, narrative and addiction. These studies revealed a difficulty in the organization of narrative identity of people with an addictive disorder, which is reflected in less coherent and less complex autobiographical narratives, in a prevalence of passivity and negative emotions, and in a widespread presence of themes related to a lack of self-efficacy. This review points out important conceptual, methodological and clinical implications encouraging further investigation of narrative dimension in addiction.

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Section: Measures Of Narrative Identity 21 Structural Variables: Narr...mentioning

confidence: 85%

Narrative identity in addictive disorders: a conceptual review

Deriu,

Altavilla,

Adornetti

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

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“…Colle et al (2008) found that pragmatic skills in highly verbal autistic adults did not differ from age-, sexand IQ-matched comparison groups; however, a narrative discourse task revealed specific challenges in autistic individuals such as using fewer personal pronouns, temporal expressions and referential expressions. Many of these previous studies; however, had small sample sizes and differences in how the study participants were matched to the autistic group, which further complicates the picture (Harvey et al, 2023).…”

Section: Narrative Abilities In Autistic Individualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing narrative storytelling ability in individuals with autism and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

Pham,

Lee,

Estes

et al. 2023

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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BackgroundNarrative discourse, or storytelling, is used in daily conversation and requires higher‐level language and social communication skills that are not always captured by standardised assessments of language. Many autistic individuals and individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) have difficulties with both social communication and language skills, and narrative discourse analysis offers an ecologically relevant approach to assessing those challenges.AimsThis study investigated narrative discourse in individuals with autism and FASD, as well as an age‐ and sex‐matched comparison group.Methods and ProceduresNarratives from 45 adolescents and adults, 11 with autism, 11 with FASD and 23 age‐ and sex‐matched comparison participants were elicited using a wordless storybook. They were then transcribed orthographically, formatted to the Systematic Analyses of Language Transcript (SALT) convention and scored based on the SALT Narrative Scoring Scheme (NSS), a standardised language analysis protocol. In addition to the NSS total score, which assesses the overall structure and cohesion of the narratives produced, local and global measures of language ability were also employed. The local language measures included the number of mental state and temporal relation terms produced, while the global language measures included mean length of utterance, total different words, total words, total utterances, rate of speech, the number of mazes (e.g., repetitions, ‘um’, ‘uh’ or self‐corrections) per total word and the NSS total score.Outcomes and ResultsUsing the SALT Language Sample Analysis tool, our results revealed that on global language measures, group differences were found on rate of speech, number of mazes per total words and the description of conflict/resolution in the narratives produced. The autism group produced significantly more mazes per total word and scored higher on the NSS conflict/resolution category score compared to the FASD and comparison groups. Both the autism and FASD groups spoke at a lower rate than the comparison group. On local language measures of narrative production, all groups were comparable, on average.Conclusions and ImplicationsWhile many aspects of narrative discourse in the autism and FASD groups were similar to each other and to the comparison group, we observed group differences on global measures of narrative production and significant individual variability within groups, suggesting that narrative abilities considered at an individual level may provide important clinical information for intervention planning. Future research should also consider additional variables that influence narrative discourse, such as motivation, distractibility or decision‐making of individual participants.What this paper addsWhat is already known on the subject Narrative discourse, or storytelling, is used in daily conversational interactions and reveals higher‐level language skills that may not be well captured by standardised assessments of language. Many autistic individuals and individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) show difficulty with pragmatic and expressive language skills.What this paper adds to existing knowledge We found that many aspects of the narratives produced by the adolescents/young adults in the autism and FASD groups were comparable to each other and to the neurotypical group. However, the groups differed on three global measures of narrative production: rate of speech, number of mazes per total words and the description of conflict/resolution in the narratives produced. Also, significant variability was observed within groups, suggesting that narrative abilities should be considered at an individual level as opposed to their clinical groups.What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? This study showed that narrative discourse is an appropriate task that can be added to routine clinical assessments of language abilities in autistic adolescents/young adults as well as those with FASD or typical development and has the potential to reveal higher‐level, real‐world language skills. An important clinical implication of this study is that narrative language abilities should be considered at an individual level and individual‐tailored interventions based on ability level due to the variability observed across individuals.

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Defining the Characteristics of Story Production of Autistic Children: A Multilevel Analysis

Adornetti,

Chiera,

Altavilla

et al. 2023

J Autism Dev Disord

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Several studies suggest that a valuable tool to examine linguistic skills in communication disorders is offered by procedures of narrative discourse assessment. Following this line of research, we present an exploratory study aimed to investigate storytelling abilities of autistic children to better define the characteristics of their story production. Participants included 41 autistic children and 41 children with typical development aged between 7.02 and 11.03 years matched on age, gender, level of formal education, intelligence quotient, working memory, attention skills, theory of mind, and phonological short-term memory. Narrative production was assessed by analysing the language samples obtained through the “Nest Story” description task. A multilevel analysis including micro- and macro-linguistic variables was adopted for narrative assessment. Group differences emerged on both micro- and macro-linguistic dimensions: autistic children produced narratives with more phonological errors and semantic paraphasias (microlinguistic variables) as well as more errors of global coherence and a fewer number of visible events and inferred events (macrolinguistic variables) than the control group.This study shows that even autistic children with adequate cognitive skills display several limitations in their narrative competence and that such weaknesses affect both micro- and macrolinguistic aspects of story production.

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Assessing ‘coherence’ in the spoken narrative accounts of autistic people: A systematic scoping review

Cited by 3 publications

References 75 publications

Narrative identity in addictive disorders: a conceptual review

Narrative identity in addictive disorders: a conceptual review

Comparing narrative storytelling ability in individuals with autism and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

Defining the Characteristics of Story Production of Autistic Children: A Multilevel Analysis

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