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Read this
if you are interested in the difference between recounting and storying really listening to what our clients have to tell developing your work with groups

Do you remember the time...? I couldnt believe it when... And then she said... A friend of mine did that once and... We are all working to ensure our clients can make choices and decisions, but what of that most basic of human needs, the sharing of conversational stories? Nicola Grove reflects on a year spent exploring different ways of storytelling with people who have learning disabilities.

nce there was a girl who was put under a spell of silence for a year and a day; and in that time all she did was collect the nettles that grew in the churchyard and she soaked them and retted them, and spun them into flax and from that flax she made....... This is part of a much longer story that I havent the time to tell you here. Once there was a lecturer who was given a year and a day to go out and collect stories from people who dont find it easy to tell ... Actually it was a year, but this is poetic licence. I was lucky enough to receive a mid career award from the Health Foundation in 2002-2003, and I spent it exploring some different ways of storytelling with adults and children who have learning disabilities. Silence for a year and a day is a good plan. When you are in the middle of the forest and feeling your way, its quite hard to explain to other people why you are there and how to get where you are going. Now Im emerging out of the wood, the year is nearing its end and Im beginning to be able to see where Ive been and what it all meant. I worked with two groups of adults - nine people with mild to moderate learning difficulties, and six people with severe and profound disabilities and two families of children with special needs. I also spent seven days working in special schools, one for children with autistic spectrum disorders and one for children with severe learning difficulties. The main questions which drove my research were: What kinds of stories are generated by people with severe communication difficulties? How can people with disabilities and their families

A year of storytelling O
and carers be helped to share experiences through storytelling? What frameworks are most useful for assessing and teaching storytelling skills?

Personal events

I was particularly interested in conversational storytelling (Norrick, 2000) about personal events. I wanted to see what kind of stories people told about their lives, and whether they could share these stories effectively with others. Some clear differences emerged between the people I was working with, depending on their ability to communicate. The first group of adult storytellers all had effective verbal communication: only three of the nine could be said to have significant difficulties in expressing themselves. They told stories about themselves, stories based on television programmes (EastEnders and Dads Army being the favourites) and traditional stories such as The Wizard of Oz. Falling off a horse, told by Terry, is a typical example from the data of an anecdotal third person narrative:

Falling off a horse

I have a friend who fell off a horse. She tried to mount it from a stool. She got on the horse, it jumped and she fell backwards. She never went riding again! Gave up the same day!

This short story meets the criteria for conversational stories suggested by Norrick (2000). It is told partly to convey information, but also to build rapport, being a classic response story, told after Sally had volunteered that she used to ride and that she had never fallen off. I then related an accident falling off a galloping horse, and Terry then contributed his story. Sometimes, however, narratives were what Norrick characterises as diffuse (that is, the bones of the story emerge gradually during the course of a conversation)

SPEECH & LANGUAGE THERAPY IN PRACTICE SPRING 2004

Picture by Paul Reid, posed by model.

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Figure 2 Storytelling analysis

(a) My Hamster (by Ed)

A. She is called Naughty, because once she escaped from the house. B. I didnt put the tubes together properly. C. It was where I lived before. D.I kept the door shut all the time. E. When I came home one day, I found her missing. F. I said, Wheres she gone? G. I put a board at each end of the sideboard so she could not keep running up and down. H. She never escaped again.

and potential (where only one or two narrative elements are present). Children with autism who were verbal were also able to tell stories, both real and imaginary (see for example Wolves in figure 2).

Reliant on others
By contrast, the nonverbal pupils in the two schools and the adults with profound disabilities were reliant on others to construct the narratives, and here there seemed to be a real difficulty in storying, as opposed to recounting, experience. I elicited stories from primary carers of the six adults with profound disabilities in the storytelling group, and from teachers and parents of children in the special schools. What emerged was a strong bias towards recounts - description of a routine rather than a story about a meaningful experience. It was common in the interviews for events from the past to be placed in the context of the present. Most informants used either the present tense, so that questions originally designed to focus on the past drifted into the here and now; or the past continuous, describing habitual rather than unique events, as in the following example (N is me, M is the mother of the service user concerned):
N. And just thinking about the year - what would you say are the key events for Shahela in the year? M. Christmas. N. Right, what happens at Christmas. M. Because she has the Christmas tree and the carols. She loves listening to the carols. So come around the beginning of December, you know, I start playing the carols at home, and she enjoys that. (.) And she likes summer as well, the sunny days. She enjoys that. Those are her highlights of the year. N. Can you remember any special Christmas - any time that stands out? M. The opening of the presents she likes, around the tree you know? N. But there isnt one that stands out? M. There is one. On Christmas Eve I take her to (shopping centre), for many years we have been doing that. We take her there and we have lunch there and we look at the decorations. And she likes that.

Structure:
Ed introduces the story with an abstract, summarising the story and explaining the name of the pet (A). He provides background information (C, D), and then launches into the event sequence (E, F, G) finishing with a resolution (G) and a coda (H) which rounds the story off. The sequencing shows Ed veering from one time frame (general past) to another (local past), but this is not enough to derail the story from the listeners point of view. Its a rather bare narrative, which Ed could be encouraged to elaborate - for example by including more events such as his search round the room. He leaves implicit the finding of the hamster, so that the high point is actually at F, and the narrative is left hanging.

Affect:
There are a number of evaluations here. At A he says explicitly that the hamster is naughty. At B he explains his own role in her escape - the inclusion of properly signalling that he was at fault. Ed uses his voice very effectively to maintain listener attention, stressing missing and saying, Wheres she gone? with an exaggerated questioning intonation and a half laugh at the antics of the hamster. He shakes his head as he says the coda (H).

Form:
Ed uses relatively few rhetorical devices, but here there is patterning in the repetition of escaped from the first line in the final line, and the formulaic running up and down.

Audience awareness:
Ed is extremely aware of the listener. He checks and monitors attention, uses stress, cues the listener into the context (C, D) and provides explanations (A, B).

(b) Wolves (by Izzy)

A. I like the safari park. B. I see lots of animals. C. I saw some wolves. D. They look like me. E. They eat bones, your bones! F. If we were out there, getting out, the wolves would eat our bones. G. They would hunt, theyd crunch and rip your top. H. I can smell the bones. I. I can smell wolves. J. I hear the howls (makes loud wolf howl).

Figure 1 Analysing stories

Structure:
This story, dictated to a teacher, counts as a potential fantasy narrative, because of the tense switches, the hypothetical actions, and the lack of climactic event or resolution. There is some confusion in the referent of getting out (F), and there is no logical event sequence as such: eating is mentioned first, followed by the events which would precede it (hunting, then crunching and ripping).

Affect:
There is powerful emotive content here, and Izzy leaves us in no doubt how we should be feeling. At (E) he switches from the generalised bones to your bones, then to our bones, including himself as victim with the listener. The exclamation mark suggests he marked the phrase in some way with stress or pitch. He ends with a scarey sound. He chooses strong, specific verbs: crunch, rip. He does not, however, make any explicit references to feelings, so that the evaluations are descriptive and evocative rather than personal in character.

Form:
The story may not be entirely coherent, but it is extremely satisfying, largely because of Izzys mastery of rhetorical devices. He links ideas through patterned sentences and repetition (I like (A) / They look like me (D); I see (B) / I saw (C); They eat (E) / They would eat (F); I can smell (H) / I can smell (I)). The repeated phrases with bones are particularly chilling, bringing the threat nearer and nearer. He also uses poetic forms: assonance (hunt/crunch) alliteration (hear/howls) and internal rhymes (rip/top). The short sentences add to the sense of contained menace, with longer patterned sentences acting as the climax at F and G. The high point is thus rhetorical and formal, rather than structural.

Audience awareness:
As this is dictated, it is not clear whether the story was in fact constructed for a listener, or as a private fantasy. However, the shift in pronouns suggests that Izzy is in fact aware of his listener. I like this story just as it is, and wouldnt change a word of it, but I would want to check out Izzys ability to structure event sequences, and to use the language of feeling as well as description.

There were some tantalising clues about why this might be so - the impoverishment of many peoples lives making reportable events the exception rather than the rule, and assumptions that only simple accounts rather than stories will be understood. The answer may lie in the role of the respondent in conversational storytelling. Where we receive no feedback from the listener, and where the key person does not initiate a story by indicating that an event is significant to them, we are unlikely to engage in extended storied dialogue. Moreover, the current policy emphasis on choicemaking (Department of Health, 2001) may privilege some kinds of talk - notably the negotiation of wants and needs and decisionmaking - over the sharing of experience which lies at the root of storytelling.

Different approaches
Various different approaches were explored in

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the course of the project - working with groups, working with individuals using PowerPoint software or tactile sensory books, and recording stories in scrapbook form, used with the families. I will focus here on the value of a storytelling group for the individuals concerned, the use of co-narration, and interactive storytelling. The setting up of groups dedicated to storytelling definitely contributed to a sense of identity and to foregrounding the activity, as was evident in the following field note:
In a discussion about the party invitations, I asked what we called ourselves - and Jim immediately said storytellers! with an inflection that suggested this should be obvious.

Analytical framework
Analytical frameworks need to fit the available data: in this case, stories which are diffuse, partial and co-narrated. I have drawn principally on the social constructionist approach, deriving from the work of Labov & Waletzky (1967) and developed by McCabe & Peterson (1991). As well as the structural or referential components of narrative - event sequence, setting information, climax and resolution - Labov emphasises the affective aspect. The teller needs to convey why the story is significant and worthy of attention, and does this typically through affective signals and devices, termed evaluations. These are both verbal (for example, references to emotional state) and nonverbal (gesture, intonation, stress). Norrick (2000) identifies a third aspect, which is rhetorical: formal devices used to cue the genre and thus expected response, to secure attention, and to give a pattern to the narrative. As storytellers mature, they become more able to take account of the needs of their listeners. This is apparent in each of the three dimensions (structure / reference; affect; form / rhetoric), and is represented in the model by a shift from the centre (self awareness) to the outer perimeter (awareness of others). Figure 1 shows a diagrammatic representation of the model, and Figure 2 shows how the model can be applied to the two stories, My Hamster (told by Ed, who has mild learning difficulties) and Wolves (told by Izzy, a child with autistic spectrum disorder). Listening to stories - really listening to what people who have severe communication difficulties want to tell - and finding a register that feels comfortable for telling - is extremely hard work. I feel I have only been able to scratch the surface in my year of storytelling, but Im encouraged by the enthusiasm and interest of the many people I have worked with day centre staff, school staff, parents, students from City University and people with learning difficulties themselves. A King had three daughters, all born on the same day, and he decided to send them out into the world and give his throne to the one who brought home the best gift. The first girl returned after a week with a pearl of great price which bestowed eternal youth and beauty on its owner. The second returned after a month with a dagger which granted certain victory over foes. But the summer slipped away and still the third daughter had not returned. One day in early autumn she was resting in a wood when suddenly a quaint little figure appeared, dressed in motley. Your sisters have brought home great and wonderful gifts, he said. But what have you been doing all this time? Oh, said she, Ive been listening to stories....

(Adapted from The Three Gifts by Helen Broadbent in Fairy Tales for the Schoolroom, Gresham Publishing Co Ltd.) Dr Nicola Grove is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Language and Communication Science, City University, e-mail DrNicolaGrove@aol.com. Note: Keith Park and I have now

As found previously (Grove, 2002) it seems very hard for people with learning difficulties to have the confidence and the skills initially to take the floor and relate a story as monologue. What works much better is a style of co-narration, where a familiar story is constructed jointly, with participants invited to provide specific contributions.
Jim shows a picture of himself in firemans uniform. He is unable to say much here, but the others help out - He volunteered; Its a fireman; It was at the flower show.

As storytellers set up an organisation to coordinate all the work we do around mature, they storytelling - Storytracks. Further become more information and free resources can be found on our website able to take www.storytracks.com, or from 41 account of the St Pancras Court, London N2 9AE. needs of their Acknowledgements listeners. The projects were supported by a
mid-career award from the PPP Foundation, and would not have been possible without the help and cooperation of service users, staff and families from Fieldways Centre and Rosa Morison Centre; pupils and staff at Sunfield and Reynalds Cross Schools; and Karen Powell, Martin Samuel, Rachel Clifford and Brenda McConville, student speech and language therapists.

Once the group has supplied the relevant details, they can collaborate in the telling of a story. Jim, Terry and Ed, who all remembered the war vividly, did a storytelling performance in which I provided the skeleton narrative, and they contributed sound effects, gestures to show the doodlebug overhead, and key lines of dialogue. Interactive call and response has proved highly successful in other contexts (Park, 1999) but is usually associated with traditional stories, literary stories and poetry. In this project we used a similar style to construct quick spontaneous storytelling about everyday events after lunch in the day centre for people with profound disabilities. The high level of rhetorical devices - repetition, exaggerated prosody, use of formulae often programmed onto switches seems to work effectively to engage the attention of people with limited understanding of content. Although this approach has the effect of ritualising what is normally a very natural and unaffected process, the difference between performance storytelling and conversational storytelling is relative rather than absolute. Norrick (2000) provides several examples of patterned language and formulaic speech in his examples of anecdotes told by adults to each other. There were signs that the inclusion of a regular shared storytelling activity could lead to genuine mutual affirmation, and we saw service users beginning to take part and respond to what was happening. It is, however, challenging for staff, requiring a high level of selfconfidence and disinhibition.

Where we receive no feedback from the listener... we are unlikely to engage in extended storied dialogue.

References
Department of Health (2001) Valuing people: a new strategy for the 21st Century. London: HMSO. Grove, N. (2002) Storytellers in the SLD school. Paper presented to the Inaugural Conference of IASSID Europe, Dublin, 12-15th June. Labov, W. & Waletzky, I. (1967) Narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experience. In J. Helm (ed) Essays on the verbal and visual arts. Seattle: University of Washington Press (pp. 12-44). McCabe, A., & Peterson, C. (Eds.) (1991) Developing narrative structure. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Norrick, N. (2000) Conversational narrative in everyday talk. Amsterdam: John Benjamin. Park, K. (1999) Storytelling with people with sensory impairments and additional disabilities. SLD Experience 23: 17-20.

Reflections
Do I value opportunities for silence listening and reflection? Do I help clients share experiences and build conversational stories? Do I try to see the wood as well as the trees?

SPEECH & LANGUAGE THERAPY IN PRACTICE SPRING 2004