Sensitivity to Causal Cohesion in Stories by Children with Mild Mental Retardation, Children with Learning Disabilities, and Children without Disabilities

This study investigated whether children with mild disabilities, compared with children without disabilities, are sensitive to the causal structure of stories. Participants were 16 children with mild mental retardation, 29 children with learning disabilities, and 37 children without disabilities who were good readers. The Causal Network Model (Trabasso, Secco, & van den Broek, 1984) was adopted to analyze the participants' causal understanding of stories. Two stories were manipulated to obtain cohesive and noncohesive versions. Cohesion was defined as the proportion of statements included in the causal chain, which is a central path that leads from the beginning to the end of a story. Although children with mild disabilities recalled less than children without disabilities, overall, similar patterns of causal understanding were observed in all groups. All groups recalled cohesive story versions better than noncohesive versions. Statements in the causal chain were better recalled and judged as more important than statements not in the causal chain. Statements with more causal connections were better recalled than statements with fewer causal connections.