®1997 The Division for Children's Communication Development Personal Narrative Structures of Children with Specific-

The purpose of this investigation was to compare the narrative discourse of children with specific-language impairment (SLI) and children with normal language development (NL). Their personal narratives were analyzed for length, number and com-plexity of narrative structures. The categories described by Glenn and Stein (1980) were used to identify narrative structures. Differences between the groups were not obtained for length of narrative. The children with SLI produced fewer narrative structures and less complex ones than their peers with NL. They did not produce narrative structures in which aims, motiva-tions, and consequences occurred as frequently as did the children with NL. Clinical considerations are discussed. Narrative abi l i ty is crit ical for literacy attainment (Sulzby & Zecker, 1991). Previous investigations have demonstrated that oral narrative ability pre-dicts and is related to academic achievement (deHirsh