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Basic Language Skills and the Understanding of Causal Connections in Head Start Children
Marcia L. Calloway1, Chastity McFarlan1, Barbara Burns2, & Danielle D. Brown1
1
Departments of Psychology, Howard University
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Louisville2
INTRODUCTION
TYPES OF CAUSAL CONNECTIONS
Narrative comprehension requires higher order cognitive processes, it resembles
everyday social experiences, and may be an important precursor for later reading
comprehension (Grasser, Singer, & Trabasso,1994; Lynch et al., 2008; Morrow,
1985).
•  Specifically, preschoolers’ narrative comprehension predicts later reading
achievement and these skills generalize across various narrative types, i.e.,
television, picture books, and oral discourse (Kendeou, Bohn-Gettler, White,
& van den Broek, 2008; Paris & Paris, 2003).
•  Narrative comprehension is most successful when people understand various causal
connections that form a network linking pieces of narrative information (Tapiero,
van den Broek, & Quintana, 2002).
•  Causal connections are inferences about causal relations among events, time
and places of actions, ideas, emotions, etc (Grasser et al., 1994).
•  There are several causal connection types that vary in complexity; enabling,
physical, motivational, and psychological (Grasser et al, 1994).
•  Causal connections also vary in distance, i.e., local and global (Grasser et al,
1994).
•  Previous research suggest basic language skills (expressive vocabulary and
phonological processing) relate to the understanding of causal connections by
children from middle-income homes (Brown, Lile, & Burns, 2010).
•  The current pilot study examines the relation between causal connections and
basic language skills for children from low-income households.
•  The development of the understanding of causal connections in children from
low-income households should be examined because children from lowincome households begin their formal education at risk for future academic
achievement (O’Conner, Arnott, McIntosh, & Dodd, 2009).
•  Understanding the development of causal connections in preschool children,
could help with the construction of literacy interventions for children from
low-income household.
Complexity Types
•  Enabling Connections
•  The least complex connection; the antecedent is necessary but not sufficient for
the consequent.
•  For example, “He get in with the other frog... And they say bye bye.”
•  Physical Connections
•  More complex than enabling connections; the antecedent is necessary and
sufficient for the consequent.
•  For example, “The dog gone fall down... And Quinton catched the puppy.”
•  Motivational Connections
•  One of the most complex connections; the connection includes goal information
that motivates character’s actions and outcomes.
•  For example, “The frog was gone… He was looking for the frog.”
•  Psychological Connections
•  One of the most complex connections; the connection includes actions or events
that cause internal states or reactions.
•  For example, “And the dog fell down…And he was so mad.”
Participants
•  15 children (8 boys and 7 girls) between 37- and 61 months-old (M = 48.53,
SD = 8.28) were recruited from Head Start programs. All participants were
African-American.
Time 1
M
Tasks & Procedure
•  The current pilot study is part of a larger, pilot study examining narrative
comprehension of children from low-income families. All participants were African
American and recruited from Head Start programs.
•  Children first completed the Differential Ability Scales, Second Edition (DAS-II;
Elliot, 2007). The Verbal Comprehension and Naming Vocabulary subscales were
used.
•  Verbal Comprehension Scale: M = 41.79, SD =8.73
•  Naming Vocabulary Scale: M = 47.36, SD = 3.20
•  Standard Verbal Score: M = 90.93, SD = 8.93
•  Story Narrative Task. Children narrated the wordless picture book Frog, Where Are
You?
•  The story narrative task was completed four times, each approximately a week
apart.
•  Children viewed the pages of the storybook in its entirety and were given the
following instructions, “Now, we will look through the story again. This time I
want you to tell me the story”. The experimenter turned the pages of the book, and
occasionally used “What happened next?” or “Good job” as prompts if a child stop
telling a story.
•  Narratives were transcribed and coded for causal connections according to
Trabasso and colleagues (Trabasso et al., 1989; Trabasso & Sperry, 1985; Trabasso
& van den Broek, 1985).
•  Table 1 and Table 2 include descriptive statistics for causal connection types
for each time.
Figure 2: Mean number of local and global connections across time
Time 2
SD
M
SD
Time 3
M
SD
Time 4
M
SD
• 
Black
Reverse to White
Children produced significantly more local connections than global
connections in general, which is consistent with previous research of children
from middle-income households (Brown et al., 2011).
•  Because local connections are used more than global connections, children
demonstrate better local comprehension than global comprehension . In
Reverse to White
PMS 2757
other words, children
are able to recall and store
information that is close
together better than information that is farther apart.
9
• 
Local
Global
8.14
7.5
another typeface.
7.21
7
6.36
•  It is possible that 3- to 5-years-old is too early in development to investigate
such differences. However, differences in complexity have been previously
found in 3- to 5-year-olds from middle-income households (Trabasso &
Nickels, 1992).
•  We did not find significant results. This is consistent with previous research
that argues that basic language skills and narrative comprehension skills are
distinct skills and independently contribute to later reading achievement
(Kendeou Bohn-Gettler, White, & van den Broek, 2008).
5
•  To date, few studies have described the understanding of narrative causal
connections by children from low-income households.
4
3.29
2.93
2.79
•  Our findings demonstrate that they have some understanding of narrative
causal connections and that their understanding of local connections is higher
than global connections.
•  Given academic achievement discrepancies between children from low- and
middle-income households, future research may investigate the role of early
narrative comprehension skills for later achievement in children from lowincome households.
1
0
Time 1
Time 2
Time 3
Time 4
Enabling
6.20
4.75
6.71
4.14
7.69
5.34
5.79
5.18
REFERENCES
Physical
4.00
3.25
3.47
2.30
4.23
2.89
3.21
2.58
Motivational
0.07
0.27
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.22
0.44
Psychological
0.29
0.47
0.57
1.13
0.56
0.53
0.86
0.90
RESULTS
10.73
7.71
9.80
6.56
11.43
7.41
8.93
7.70
Correlation analyses that controlled for chronological age examined the relationship
between narrative comprehension and basic language skills.
•  There were no significant correlations between basic language skills and
narrative comprehension for each time period. There were also no significant
correlations between basic language skills and average casual connections across
time periods.
Brown, D.D., Lile, J., & Burns, B.M. (2011). Basic language skills and young children’s
understanding of causal connections during storytelling. Reading Psychology, 32, 1-23.
Elliot, C. D. (2007). The differential ability scales-second edition. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt
Assessment, Inc.
Grasser, A., Singer, M., & Trabasso, T. (1994). Constructing inferences during narrative text
comprehension. Psychological Review, 101, 371-395.
Kendeou, P., Bohn-Gettler, C., White, M.J., & van den Broek, P. (2008). Children’s inference
generation across different media. Journal of Research in Reading, 32, 259-272.
Morrow, L. ( 1985). Retelling stories: A strategy for improving young children’s
comprehension, concept of story structure, and oral language complexity. The Elementary
School Journal, 85, 646-661.
O’Conner, M., Arnott, W., McIntosh, B., & Dodd, B. (2009). Phonological awareness and
language intervention in preschoolers from low socio-economic backgrounds: A
longitudinal investigation. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27, 767-782.
Tapiero, I., van den Broek, P., & Quintana, M. (2002). The mental representation of narrative
texts as networks: The role of necessity and sufficiency in the direction of different types
of causal relations. Discourse Processes, 34, 237-258.
Trabasso, T., & Nickels, M. (1992). The development of goal plans of action in the narration
of a picture story. Discourse Processes, 15, 249-275.
Trabasso, T. & Sperry, L.L. (1985). Causal relatedness and importance of story events.
Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 595-611.
Trabasso, T., & van den Broek, P. (1985). Causal thinking and the representation of narrative
events. Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 612-630.
Trabasso, T., van den Broek, P., & Suh, S.Y. (1989). Logical necessity and transitivity of
Total
Table 2: Descriptive statistics for causal connection type (distance)
Time 1
M
SD
Time 2
M
SD
Time 3
M
SD
Time 4
M
SD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Local
Global
7.50
2.93
5.97
2.20
7.47
2.33
5.07
1.84
8.14
3.29
5.50
2.16
6.27
2.67
5.47
2.38
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connection
type.
and
schools
•  We also examined the relationship between causal connections and basic language
skills.
6
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There was not a significant effect of time or causal
•
•  A lack of power because of the low number of participants can also explain
the lack of significant findings.
2
Table 1: Descriptive statistics for causal connections type (complexity)
The current study examined causal connections and the relationship to basic
language skills in children from low-income households.
Our results demonstrate that children from low-income families are also
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capable of engaging in mental processes needed for narrative
comprehension.
Logotype: The specially set type style for HU and
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However, the ability to connect information that is farther in distance in a
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narrative is not as developed as information that is close together.
2.36
METHOD & PROCEDURE
• 
• 
8
Distance Types
•  Local Connections
•  Connects information that is close together in a narrative such as a character’s
motivation and an instantaneous action.
•  For example, “It got out…He said Froggy where are you.”
•  Global Connections
•  Connects information that is farther apart in a narrative such as the narrative
goal and outcome.
•  For example, “Um, he looked in the trees…Then find to where’s my frog.”
CONCLUSION
Two multivariate repeated measures analyses of variance were conducted to
compare the number of causal connections across time periods.
•  In the first analyses used, time and complexity type were within subjects factors
and chronological age was the covariate. There was no main effects or
interactions.
•  In the second analyses, time and distance type were within subjects factors and
chronological age was the covariate.
•  There was a significant main effect of distance type, Wilks’ Lambda =.30,
F(1, 12) = 27.46, p <.01, such that children used more local connections
(M = 7.30, SE = .62) than global connections (M = 2.84, SE = 0.28).
Number of Connections
• 
RESULTS
We would like to thank Sorrae Adams and the Jefferson County Public Schools
(JCPS) Head Start program, Dorcas James (Director), and all the teachers and
families at JCPS Head Start. This study was partially funded by a University of
Louisville Undergraduate Research Grant awarded to Barbara M. Burns.
causal relations in stories. Discourse Processes, 12,1-25.