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

1
Effects of Color versus Black and White Pictures
on Children's Storytelling
Buffy Dubreuil, Reane Laurin, and Phyllis
Schneider Department of Speech Pathology
Audiology, University of Alberta

• 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, BW) was counterbalanced
• Examiner prompts were limited

• 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 childrens 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
  childrens narratives as measured by 1) story
  grammar, 2) number of words, or 3) number of
  different words?

Results
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)

• 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
Poster presented at SRCLD, June 2008
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• 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 childrens 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.