Narrative Assessment Protocol
Here you will find materials for using the Narrrative Assessment Protocol (NAP), a standardized measure used to examine the expressive narratives of preschool-aged children. The NAP focuses specifically on the domain of microstructure, particularly grammatical conventions. The NAP is designed to be used online - scored from a video - and no transcription is needed. This makes NAP potentially amenable to at-scale use.
Our in-progress research suggests that NAP scores converge well with conventional measures of narrative derived from transcription (number of different words, mean length of T-units) as well as standardized measures of general language ability (e.g., Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals: Preschool-2). This means that the NAP can be used to analyze a child's language skills, perhaps to identify relative strengths and needs for educational planning. Our research has suggested that the diagnostic accuracy of NAP is in the fair range (sensitivity and specificity of about .80) indicating that it is not an ideal measure to be used for screening purposes. Future research will focus on refining the tool so that it might serve screening purposes.
Materials available for download include the training manual, NAP coding sheet, and audio files and corresponding transcripts using to achieve reliability. Individuals who want to use the NAP for educational or clinical purposes should carefully review the training manual and progress through the reliability training process described within the manual. A spreadsheet is also included the provides the "correct answers" for each transcript, so that individuals can identify if/when they have achieved reliability.
These materials may be used for educational purposes. They are not to be reproduced, sold, or used for commercial purposes. Their use in any reports or presentations must be fully cited, as:
Pence, K., Justice, L. M., & Gosse, C. (2007). Narrative Assessment Protocol. Columbus, OH: Preschool Language and Literacy Lab, The Ohio State University.
Please contact Laura Justice (justice.57@osu.edu) for additional information.