What is the narrative elaboration interview procedure? Describe how this procedure works and what ...

In the United States, Saywitz and Snyder (1996 ) developed an interview procedure called narrative elaboration . With this procedure, children learn to organize stories into relevant categories: Participants, Settings, Actions, Conversation/affective states, and Consequences. A card containing a line drawing is available for each category (see Figure 6.1 for four of them). These visual cues help children remember to state all that they can. Children practise telling stories with each card before being questioned about the critical event. Then, they are asked for a free narrative about the critical event—for example, “What happened?” Lastly, children are presented with each card and asked, “Does this card remind you to tell something else?”

To test the narrative elaboration procedure, children in Grades 1 and 2 and children
in Grades 4, 5, and 6 witnessed a staged event ( Saywitz & Snyder, 1996 ). The children were then interviewed with either the narrative-elaboration procedure (involving training in the use of reminder cue cards), exposure to the cue cards without training, or a “standard” interview without training or cue cards. Children interviewed with the narrative elaboration procedure reported more accurate information but not more inaccurate information for the staged event compared with when just the cue cards were presented without training or the standard interview. Also, children did not fabricate more information with the narrative-elaboration procedure.