ABSTRACT
The present study investigated whether repeated practice in answering open-ended questions about personal events (narrative practice) benefits the narrative quality of unrelated accounts, and whether it had a rapport-building function. Over 4 sessions, children (N = 86) aged 6–12 (M = 8.71, SD = 1.76; 56% female; 20% Aboriginal) talked with RA1 about personal events (practice condition) or did a craft (control condition). The following week, children watched a film and a new RA asked what happened. Children’s narratives were coded for story grammar and accuracy, which were correlated with age. As predicted, the practice condition reported more complex story grammar and more accurate details than the craft condition, with a small increase in errors to follow-up questions, and more frequently endorsed RA1 as a potential disclosure recipient. The results suggest that engaging in ongoing practice responding to open-ended questions about experienced events improves children’s narrative abilities and builds rapport.