Effects of Color versus Black and White Pictures on Children's Storytelling

Buffy Dubreuil, Reane Laurin, and Phyllis SchneiderDepartment of Speech Pathology & Audiology, University of Alberta

Does color make a difference?

•Previous research: the ways stories are presented to children will affect the quality of stories they tell/retell (Schneider, 1996; Schneider & Dubé, 1997, 2005)

•There appears to be an assumption that color pictures are preferable to black and white ones

•Evidence: requests to color the pictures of the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument (ENNI)

•Research on the issue is very limited (studies of test stimuli found no effects – Brownell, 2000; Husband & Hayden, 1996)

•It is possible that color might make a difference in a narrative context

•Might attract and hold children’s attention better

•Might help them focus on salient elements

•Current study compared story stimuli in color and black and white on measures of story quality and quantity

•Research question: Does the type of visual stimuli (color versus black and white) affect children’s narratives as measured by 1) story grammar, 2) number of words, or 3) number of different words?

Methods

Participants•22 children aged 4-6

•Mean 59.98 mos. (SD 7.52 mos.)•range 48.30-77.77 mos.

• attended preschools or daycares in Edmonton, AB

Materials•Pictures from the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument* (ENNI; Schneider, Hayward, & Dubé, 2006) – first episodes of stories A3 and B3 (5 pictures each)•A color version of each story was created•See first picture from each story in color and black and white below

Procedure•Each child was seen individually in his/her preschool•All children first told the ENNI* training story•Then child told one of each story and condition (total of 2 stories)•Presentation of story (A3, B3) and condition (color, B&W) was counterbalanced•Examiner prompts were limited•Stories were audiotaped and later transcribed•Stories were scored for Story Grammar (ENNI*)•Total Number of Words and Number of Different Words was calculated using CLAN

Data analysisStories told in the Color and B&W conditions were compared using paired samples t-tests

Alpha: .05 for each testBeta: .30 (to provide a level higher than which a

non-significant result would be considered truly not significant)

*See the ENNI website for more information about the ENNI: www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/spa/enni

No comparison was significant. • All p values exceeded the Beta of .30 (ranging

from .72-.87)• Thus in no case did children provide more or better

information with color pictures

17 of the children were also asked which story they preferred

9 preferred the story they saw in color

but: only 4 said they preferred it because of color

7 preferred the story they saw in black and white

1 liked both equally

Reasons given for preference: most commonly, something about the story content (type of animal, setting, etc.)

Conclusion: The same results will be obtained with color and black-and-white picture stimuli.

Color version of A3 Black-and-white version of A3

Color version of B3 Black-and-white version of B3

Measure Color B & W

Story Grammar Units 8.27 (1.42) 8.09 (2.45)

Total Number of Words 59.82 (25.45) 60.82 (26.14)

Number of Different Words 28.64 (9.11) 28.86 (8.18)

Results

Poster presented at SRCLD, June 2008

References

Brownell, R. (2000). Expressive One Word Picture Vocabulary Test (3rd Edition). Novato, California: Academic Therapy Publications.

Husband, T. H., & Hayden, D. C. (1996). Effects of the addition of color to assessment instruments. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 14, 147-151.

Schneider, P. (1996). Effects of pictures versus orally presented stories on story retellings by children with language impairment. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 5, 86-96.

Schneider, P., & Dubé, R. V. (1997). Effect of pictorial versus oral story presentation on children's use of referring expressions in retell. First Language, 5, 283-302.

Schneider, P., & Dubé, R. V. (2005). Story presentation effects on children’s retell content. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 14, 52-60.

Schneider, P., Hayward, D., & Dubé, R. V. (2006). Storytelling from pictures using the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument. Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, 30, 224-238.