The "StoryLincs" project is funded by an ARC Discovery Grant (DP0662936) awarded for three years from 2006-2008 to study autism and written narrative.

The research is novel in its focus on written narrative. The disciplines of linguistics and cognitive science bring a unique perspective to the research which will utilise detailed discourse analytic techniques to explore the abilities and deficits of children with autism with respect to the story-telling task. Discourse Analysis is a branch of linguistics that studies the structure and other linguistic characteristics of connected speech or written texts.

The project will survey narrative capability in high-functioning children with autism, and typically developing children, attending mainstream primary schools in the middle and late primary years, and has established links with the Catholic Education Office of Victoria and families registered with Autism Victoria to achieve this goal. The desired outcome is to gain a better understanding of characteristic language behaviours observed in children with autism with the long term goal of improving language and literacy interventions.

For this study, we will be collecting pre-existing stories and also asking children to type stories into a purpose-designed computer program. We are actively recruiting interested families to participate: please see our For Families page and contact us if you would like to find out more about being involved.