Methods for analyzing how adults organize their storytelling when telling the story of Cinderella

What is it about?

When adults get older or have an injury to their brain, they may develop difficulties with telling an organized story. This article introduces new methods for analyzing how adults without a brain injury organize their storytelling. Specifically, we examined whether adults share information in the correct order (or sequence), and whether they organized story events well by introducing problems, describing ways the characters try to solve the problems, and describing what happens as a result of the problem-solving attempts.

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Why is it important?

This study showed that the new methods were able to identify differences between the story organization of younger adults and older adults. The results are promising because they suggest the methods may be useful in showing differences between adults who have or have not had a brain injury. The results also provide a way to compare the storytelling of adults with brain injury with results from those who do not have a brain injury. Future research will be needed to show if these methods may be useful in assessing the storytelling of adults who have had a brain injury.