Speaking Your Mind: Language and Narrative in Young Children's Theory of Mind Development

Tompkins, Virginia; Farrar, M. Jeffrey; Montgomery, Derek E.

doi:10.1016/bs.acdb.2018.11.003

Cited by 31 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 118 publications

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“…By focusing on procedural meanings, I will construe Theory of Mind broadly: as a form of social cognition that comprises not only belief understanding, but also more basic skills such as monitoring other people's attention or keeping track of shared knowledge (both of which involve some understanding of mental states and are recruited in communication). My proposal will therefore have a wider scope than previous work on the relationship between language and Theory of Mind, which has mainly focused on children's understanding of belief (see Tompkins et al 2019). This also means that the present account does not hinge on the ongoing debate in the Theory of Mind literature about whether the concept of belief is innate or develops during childhood (Onishi and Baillargeon 2005;Heyes 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Pragmatic markers: the missing link between language and Theory of Mind

Rubio-Fernández

2020

Synthese

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Language and Theory of Mind come together in communication, but their relationship has been intensely contested. I hypothesize that pragmatic markers connect language and Theory of Mind and enable their co-development and co-evolution through a positive feedback loop, whereby the development of one skill boosts the development of the other. I propose to test this hypothesis by investigating two types of pragmatic markers: demonstratives (e.g., 'this' vs. 'that' in English) and articles (e.g., 'a' vs. 'the'). Pragmatic markers are closed-class words that encode non-representational information that is unavailable to consciousness, but accessed automatically in processing. These markers have been associated with implicit Theory of Mind because they are used to establish joint attention (e.g., 'I prefer that one') and mark shared knowledge (e.g., 'We bought the house' vs. 'We bought a house'). Here I develop a theoretical account of how joint attention (as driven by the use of demonstratives) is the basis for children's later tracking of common ground (as marked by definite articles). The developmental path from joint attention to common ground parallels language change, with demonstrative forms giving rise to definite articles. This parallel opens the possibility of modelling the emergence of Theory of Mind in human development in tandem with its routinization across language communities and generations of speakers. I therefore propose that, in order to understand the relationship between language and Theory of Mind, we should study pragmatics at three parallel timescales: during language acquisition, language use, and language change.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Pragmatic markers: the missing link between language and Theory of Mind

Rubio-Fernández

2020

Synthese

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“…To promote a thorough understanding of a story, Shanahan and Shanahan (1997) suggested story maps not only teach narrative structure, but also emphasize varying and changing character perspectives often found in narrative texts. These opportunities to engage in perspective taking may not only improve comprehension of text, but also promote ToM (TOMPKINS et al, 2019). For example, fourth and fifth graders with ASD improved their ability to retell from the perspective of different characters after completing a story map that embedded opportunities to describe character traits and infer character feelings/perspectives at different points in the story (DODD et al, 2011).…”

Section: Supporting Tom In Reading and Mathematics Instructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…ToM understanding is reciprocal as individuals attribute mental states as both the cause and effect of actions and behaviors including how their own behavior impacts another's mental state and subsequent actions and vice-versa (HUTCHINS et al, 2016). This ability to interpret the thoughts, beliefs and desires that motivate behaviors and actions is central to understanding others in our daily lives (TOMPKINS;FARRAR;MONTGOMERY, 2019). In the opening vignette, to answer "Why is Rocky being so mean to the boys?"…”

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confidence: 99%

The role of theory of mind and learning of children with autism spectrum disorders in classroom settings

Whalon¹,

Cox²

2020

ETD - Educ. temat. digit.

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Developing social competence is inherently difficult for learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These challenges related to social competence are often attributed to social cognition including Theory of Mind (ToM) and not only interfere with the ability to attain and maintain social relationships but can also hinder academic performance. Educators are responsible and accountable for improving the academic performance of children with ASD and because of this emphasis on academic instruction, interventions that address social cognition including ToM may be overlooked in classroom settings. Yet, the influence of ToM and social cognition on both social and academic performance makes it essential that educators begin to address these skills early and in classroom settings. The purpose of this paper is to review the ToM construct as well as the links between ToM and the academic skill development of learners with ASD. This article includes examples of evidence-based educational strategies (i.e., reading and mathematics) for students with ASD and explain how these strategies may also support ToM.

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“…Theory‐of‐Mind development is related to a set of cognitive skills, especially linguistic skills (Farrar, Benigno, Tompkins, & Gage, 2017; Milligan, Astington, & Dack, 2007; Tompkins, Farrar, & Montgomery, 2019) and executive functions (for a Meta‐analysis see Devine & Hughes, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theory‐of‐mind during childhood: Investigating syntactic and executive contributions

et al. 2020

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Both syntax and Executive Functions (EF) are involved in Theory‐of‐Mind (ToM) but their contributory roles have mainly been studied separately. Moreover, researchers have mostly administered False Belief (FB) tasks while they may not be representative of all ToM abilities. Studies of adults give valuable information regarding whether syntax and EF are useful for ToM reasoning (i.e., Reasoning account), however, only the study of children brings direct evidence in favor of ToM emergence (i.e., Emergence account). Also, because the ToM tasks used often entail verbal and executive demands, the links observed could mostly result from such confounds (i.e., Expression account). We evaluated ToM, syntactic and EF abilities in 126 children (3‐11 y.o.) using a set of ToM tasks with minimal verbal and executive demands. Our goals were to assess (1) the hierarchical contribution of syntax and EF to ToM, (2) whether results previously obtained for FB tasks are representative of ToM in general, (3) whether the ToM‐syntax and ToM‐EF links are constant (i.e., Reasoning account) or decrease during development (i.e., Emergence accounts). Results of stepwise regression analyses showed a predominant role of syntax over EF to predict ToM abilities. The comparison of results for ToM and FB tasks showed that FB is not always representative of ToM. Finally, there was no moderating effect of age on the syntax‐ToM or EF‐ToM relations, thus suggestive of the Reasoning account rather than the Emergence account.

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Speaking Your Mind: Language and Narrative in Young Children's Theory of Mind Development

Cited by 31 publications

References 118 publications

Pragmatic markers: the missing link between language and Theory of Mind

Pragmatic markers: the missing link between language and Theory of Mind

The role of theory of mind and learning of children with autism spectrum disorders in classroom settings

Theory‐of‐mind during childhood: Investigating syntactic and executive contributions

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