Abstract
A child's oral narrative abilities are an expression of his/her overall language development and an early predictor of future literacy skill. Until recently, many speech-language pathologists focused exclusively on the fictional story format as means to assess and remediate oral narrative development. Research suggests that while fictional narratives are critical for academic success, it is personal narrative that develops first, builds overall language skills, and supports social interactions with others. In addition, those who work with children with oral language disorders are often unsure of how to target narrative skills-including where to begin, how to proceed and how to support a child's unique learning needs. Speech-language pathologists, teachers, and parents need a guidebook that outlines how to approach personal and fictional narratives. The guidebook developed through this project focuses on evidenced-based, multi-modality (e.g., kinesthetic/tactile, visual, auditory) practices to support the diverse learning needs of children with language and/or learning problems. A short-term series of anthropological observations with 2 children, each with a history of language difficulties, suggested that a multimodality approach to oral narrative acquisition has promise and deserves further exploration in the future.