Structural Development of Picture-Elicited Narrative of Mandarin Children

The present study examined the developmental trajectories of Mandarin-speaking children's narrative skills. 70 children aged from 3 to 9 years old in Beijing participated the study. A picture book without words was presented to children for eliciting their narratives. The results suggest that Chinese children show more elaborated narrative structures and diverse evaluation devices with age. The age of 3 to 5 is the crucial period for Chinese children to construct narrative structure. The age of 6 is the crucial period for Chinese children to use evaluation devices in narratives. Comparing with embedded evaluation, pure evaluation devices are not easy to be used in all age groups.