Shared storybook reading is a naturalistic activity that promotes early literacy skills and is predictive for later reading and writing. Owing to a wide variety of possibilities, like technical, content or language adaptations, these storybooks offer the opportunity of interactive participation to children with a wide variety of impairments, while also displaying beneficial effects on children with typical development. The aim of this study was to investigate the achievement of narration after reading the adapted storybook compared to reading a standard storybook. Narrative skills were analysed on the macrostructural level on a sample of 30 children aged from 5;07 to 6;07 years. Their cognitive and language development was typical. Two stories, Mačka and Pas, were used which are part of MAIN – Croatian version: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives. The results indicated that after reading adapted storybooks, children have significantly differed in the area of comprehension and in using words that indicate internal states of characters. No significant difference was found in the general structure of the story and on most of the levels of structural complexity. These results point to the need for further research in this area in order to establish the ground of evidence based speech and language practice.

adapted storybook, narrative skills, complex communication needs, MAIN-Croatian version: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives