Oral storytelling skills are a complex oral discourse competency with implications for children's academic and social well‐being, yet few studies have investigated the development of these skills among typically developing African American children. The current study used longitudinal data, collected between 2012 and 2013, from 130 African American children (59–95 months old; 66 girls) to explore the development of fictional oral narrative skills. Results showed growth in macrostructure (i.e., story grammar) and microstructure productivity (i.e., number of total words; number of different words) over the school year. There was no evidence of growth in microstructure complexity. Nonverbal cognitive skills emerged as an individual difference in predicting oral narrative production. This study contributes to increasing the knowledge base needed to support African American children's oral language development.

中文翻译：

---

成为虚构的故事讲述者：非裔美国儿童小学早期口头叙事的发展

口头讲故事技能是一种复杂的口头言语能力，对儿童的学业和社会福祉具有影响，但很少有研究调查典型发育中的非裔美国儿童这些技能的发展情况。本研究使用 2012 年至 2013 年间收集的 130 名非裔美国儿童（59-95 个月大；66 名女孩）的纵向数据来探索虚构口头叙事技能的发展。结果显示整个学年宏观结构（即故事语法）和微观结构生产力（即总单词数；不同单词的数量）有所增长。没有证据表明微观结构复杂性有所增加。非语言认知技能作为预测口头叙事产生的个体差异而出现。这项研究有助于增加支持非裔美国儿童口语发展所需的知识基础。