Purpose: The purpose of this study was to design and evaluate the validity, developmental sensitivity, and scoring reliability of a rubric for measuring the holistic quality of stories for preschool and school age children. Method: 224 children, ages 4-7, told stories in a single structured context which were then scored by a group of trained raters using the Holistic Assessment of Narrative Discourse (HAND) to evaluate aspects of its psychometric adequacy, specifically validity, developmental

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... ensitivity, and inter-rater reliability. Results: The results showed that the scores on the HAND were a valid measure of narrative quality that were sensitive to developmental changes over age and could be scored reliably. Conclusion: This tool may be a useful adjunct to traditional measures for characterizing children's narratives.