MAD Colloquium: Assessing personal narrative coherence: A global investigation

Abstract

In a recent global study, we explored how children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds tell personal stories. We asked 417 ten-year-olds from 21 different groups across 19 countries, to share personal narratives, using the Global TALES protocol. We evaluated three of the children's stories —one happy, one angry, and one about a problem— using the Narrative Coherence Coding Scheme (NaCCS). We looked at how coherent their stories were, focusing on context, chronology, and theme. Our findings showed clear differences in narrative coherence depending on both the child’s cultural group and the type of story prompt. Interestingly, problem-based stories were generally more coherent than angry ones, and some groups consistently scored lower on coherence, especially in the theme dimension. These results suggest that NaCCS may be a promising tool for assessing storytelling across cultures and languages. As we move forward, we aim to refine the framework and expand our sample, with the goal of making personal narrative assessment a routine part of clinical practice worldwide.

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