STORY-BASED COMMUNICATION WITH YOUNG CHILDREN: COGNITIVE, LINGUISTIC, EMOTIONAL AND RESILIENCE OUTCOMES THROUGH INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING

<doi>10.24250/jpe/1/2026/MBI/</doi>

Abstract

Story-based communication is a high-leverage
developmental context in early childhood because it
integrates language, cognition, emotion, and social
understanding within shared meaning-making. This paper
synthesizes theoretical and empirical research on story
reading, oral storytelling, and co-constructed narratives,
with specific attention to feedback as a mechanism that
both reveals and shapes comprehension. We argue that
interactive storytelling outperforms passive exposure by
promoting inferential processing, vocabulary growth,
sustained attention, and emotion understanding through
contingent adult-child dialogue. Evidence from cognitive
neuroscience suggests that narrative listening recruits
distributed networks supporting semantic integration and
mental imagery, particularly in enriched literacy
environments. Developmental studies indicate predictable
growth in narrative competence from single-event recounts
states. Socio-cultural theory frames story-based interaction
as mediated learning in which children internalize
cognitive tools through guided participation. Within this
synthesis, we introduce ReNIMo, a responsive framework
integrating cognitive activation, linguistic expansion,
emotional mentalization, and adaptive meaning-making.
ReNIMo foregrounds calibrated scaffolding and feedbacksensitive
dialogue as core features of effective pedagogical
communication practice. We outline classroom-aligned
good practices, including think-aloud modeling, dialogic
questioning, visual documentation, and structured coconstruction.
We also discuss ethically grounded
opportunities for AI-supported conversational engagement
as a supplementary tool for narrative practice.
Pedagogical implications emphasize culturally relevant story selection, systematic documentation of narrative
growth, and stage-appropriate scaffolding. Future
research directions include longitudinal classroom studies,
bilingual-context investigations, and careful evaluation of
digital narrative tools under ethical constraints.