Assessing a child’s narrative skills can reveal how a child uses language in a naturalistic and spontaneous context. When working with children from diverse backgrounds, however, it’s important to ensure that narrative assessments properly allow a child to show their skills.

The latest forum in Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools (LSHSS) presents a global perspective on narrative assessments. The forum, from Guest Editors Marleen F. Westerveld and Natalia Gagarina, highlights six articles and their clinical implications.

Incorporating Narratives in the Clinic

In their introduction to the forum, Westerveld and Gagarina introduce two narrative frameworks and discuss the articles in the forum. “By bringing these tools to the clinical community, we hope to promote more effective and precise evaluation of children’s narrative skills,” they write (Westerveld & Gagarina, p.1051).

Jensen de López et al. guide clinicians to integrate personal narratives into assessment and treatment for children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Then, Domby and Washington introduce a protocol for eliciting personal stories from children and adolescents across linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Narratives and Emotions Across Diverse Groups

Westerveld and colleagues tested the Global Talking About Lived Experiences in Stories (Global TALES) protocol in a group of young people from 19 countries or regions, indicating that using this protocol can help 10-year-olds from a variety of backgrounds produce narratives. Similarly, Fichman et al. compare how bilingual children retell stories in each of their languages, finding subtle differences that may be related to culture or identity.

Gagarina and colleagues studied how children in 32 countries convey characters’ internal states (such as thoughts and emotions) in drawings throughout childhood. Bauer et al. also show how children convey their feelings and intentions—in this case, the authors examined how preschoolers use internal state verbs in fictional and personal narratives.

Finding Culturally Appropriate Assessment Tools

ASHA’s speech-language pathologists (SLPs) work with a diverse range of students across the country. We’re pleased to bring you the latest on these and other culturally appropriate assessment tools so that these children can get the care they need to succeed in school and beyond.

We’d like to thank Drs. Westerveld and Gagarina as well as all of the authors and reviewers who brought these articles to ASHA Journals. Read the entire forum in the latest issue of LSHSS, or explore the individual articles below.

Explore the Forum

Bauer, E., Schmidt, A., Westerveld, M., & Gagarina, N. (2026). A comparison of internal state verb production in fictional and personal narratives elicited via multilingual assessment instrument of narratives and global talking about lived experiences in stories. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 57(4), 1151–1161. https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00154

Domby, L. M., & Washington, S. C. (2026). Clinical focus: Clinical applications of the Global TALES (Talking About Lived Experiences in Stories) protocol for assessment of personal event narrative language. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 57(4), 1076–1089. https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00126

Fichman, S., Altman, C., Walters, J., & Armon-Lotemb, S. (2026). Heritage speakers telling fictional stories in two languages: Cross-linguistic differences in macrostructure. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 57(4), 1115–1129. https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00179

Gagarina, N., Bohnacker, U., Bohn, M., Armon-Lotem, S., Abashidze, D., Alamshoev, Q., Alkhimchenkova, D., Altman, C., Amirkul, A., Amora, K. K., Antonijevic, S., Aparici, M., Argus, R., Białecka, M., Blom, E., Boerma, T., Camus Torres, A., Chan, A., Maheshwari Chimirala, U., . . . Walters, J. (2026). Children’s oral narrative skills through the lens of internal state terms: A large-scale study of fictional stories elicited with the multilingual assessment instrument for narratives. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 57(4), 1130–1150. https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00147

Jensen de López, K., Gabaj, M., Gupta, V., Søndergaard Knudsen, H. B., & Kuvač Kraljevićc, J. (2026). Personal narrative assessment to guide clinical practices in the assessment and support of children with developmental language disorder: A tutorial. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 57(4), 1058–1075. https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00142

Westerveld, M. F., & Gagarina, N. (2026). Introduction to the forum: Global assessment of narratives. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 57(4), 1051–1057. https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-26-00166

Westerveld, M. F., Malone, S., Westby, C., Amato, C., Ohenewa Bampoe, J., Chan, A., Chen, K.-M., Chrysostomou, M., Claessen, M., Einarsdóttir, J., Ferman, S., Dreux Fernandes, F., Filiatrault-Veilleux, P., Gabaj, M., Geronikou, E., Gupta, V., Jensen de López, K., Kawar, K., Kuvač Kraljević, J., . . . Nelson, N. (2026). Exploring personal narrative coherence in 10-year-old children: A global study using the Global TALES protocol. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 57(4), 1090–1114. https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_LSHSS-25-00143