The Role of Language in Theory of Mind Development

Villiers, Jill G. de; Villiers, Peter A. de

doi:10.1097/tld.0000000000000037

Cited by 116 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 66 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Next to that, girls also have better verbal abilities than boys (Halpern, 2000), stronger syntactic abilities and a larger amount of social experiences (Charman et al, 2002). Language is considered an important factor in ToM functioning (e.g., de Villiers and de Villiers, 2014). Finally, there is some evidence that females show more pronounced responses of the mirror neuron system than males (Cheng et al, 2006); the mirror neuron system has been hypothesized to directly relate to ToM abilities in both children and adults (for a review see Oberman and Ramachandran, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All children had a Dutch linguistic background, and did not have language acquisition problems that could have hampered their performance on the tasks (for the role of language in ToM development and ToM performance: Milligan et al, 2007; de Villiers and de Villiers, 2014; Ebert, 2015). Two Dutch language tests were used, depending on the age of the child.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Non-linearities in Theory-of-Mind Development

Blijd-Hoogewys

Geert

2017

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research on Theory-of-Mind (ToM) has mainly focused on ages of core ToM development. This article follows a quantitative approach focusing on the level of ToM understanding on a measurement scale, the ToM Storybooks, in 324 typically developing children between 3 and 11 years of age. It deals with the eventual occurrence of developmental non-linearities in ToM functioning, using smoothing techniques, dynamic growth model building and additional indicators, namely moving skewness, moving growth rate changes and moving variability. The ToM sum-scores showed an overall developmental trend that leveled off toward the age of 10 years. Within this overall trend two non-linearities in the group-based change pattern were found: a plateau at the age of around 56 months and a dip at the age of 72–78 months. These temporary regressions in ToM sum-score were accompanied by a decrease in growth rate and variability, and a change in skewness of the ToM data, all suggesting a developmental shift in ToM understanding. The temporary decreases also occurred in the different ToM sub-scores and most clearly so in the core ToM component of beliefs. It was also found that girls had an earlier growth spurt than boys and that the underlying developmental path was more salient in girls than in boys. The consequences of these findings are discussed from various theoretical points of view, with an emphasis on a dynamic systems interpretation of the underlying developmental paths.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-linearities in Theory-of-Mind Development

Blijd-Hoogewys

Geert

2017

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Usually, first-order complement clauses, as shown below in Example (1) (adapted from [44]), have been used in the literature to investigate this relationship. Complement clauses such as “ that p ” may be used to express propositional attitudes (or opinions) towards some state p in the world [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Syntactic Recursion Facilitates and Working Memory Predicts Recursive Theory of Mind

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this study, we focus on the possible roles of second-order syntactic recursion and working memory in terms of simple and complex span tasks in the development of second-order false belief reasoning. We tested 89 Turkish children in two age groups, one younger (4;6–6;5 years) and one older (6;7–8;10 years). Although second-order syntactic recursion is significantly correlated with the second-order false belief task, results of ordinal logistic regressions revealed that the main predictor of second-order false belief reasoning is complex working memory span. Unlike simple working memory and second-order syntactic recursion tasks, the complex working memory task required processing information serially with additional reasoning demands that require complex working memory strategies. Based on our results, we propose that children’s second-order theory of mind develops when they have efficient reasoning rules to process embedded beliefs serially, thus overcoming a possible serial processing bottleneck.

show abstract

“…Studies indicate that the way parents use mental state language in interaction with their child during the first year of life predicts the child's later development in ToM (e.g., Kirk, Pine, Wheatley, Howlett, Schulz, & Fletcher, 2015;Meins, Fernyhough, Wainwright, Das Gupta, Fradley, & Tuckey, 2002;Sundqvist, Koch, Holmer, & Heimann, 2014). Further, even though ToM is a unique cognitive construct, it has at the same time been suggested to rely on general language development (Milligan et al, 2007), certain linguistic accomplishments (de Villiers & de Villiers, 2014) and working memory (Carlson et al, 2013;Moses & Tahiroglu, 2010). Siegal and Varley (2002) suggest that ToM development is supported by co-opted systems, including language and working memory, and is triggered by early conversational experiences of mental states.…”

Section: Development Of Theory Of Mindmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signs for Developing Reading : Sign Language and Reading Development in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

Holmer¹

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Reading development is supported by strong language skills, not least in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children. Regional Special Needs Schools (RSNS) in Sweden have a bilingual curriculum, that is, DHH pupils at these schools learn Swedish Sign Language and written and/or spoken Swedish. The work in the present thesis investigates reading development in DHH children who attend these schools and who are learning to read. The primary aim of the present work was to investigate whether the reading skills of DHH signing children can be improved via computerized sign language based literacy training aimed at strengthening the connections between sign language and written language. Another aim was to investigate concurrent and longitudinal associations between skills in reading, sign language, and cognition in this population. The results indicate that sign language skills support developing reading skills in RSNS pupils (Paper I and Paper IV). In particular, sign language based literacy training appears to support development of word reading (Paper IV). In addition, awareness of the sublexical structure of sign language seems to assist word reading (Paper I). Interestingly, the ability to imitate manual gestures was related to reading skills. More specifically, precision of imitation of unfamiliar signs was associated with development of word reading (Paper IV) and precision of imitation of familiar signs, i.e., vocabulary, seemed to be associated with developing reading comprehension (Paper IV). Results also suggest that working memory and Theory of Mind (ToM) are related to reading comprehension in RSNS pupils (Paper III). In addition to these findings relating to reading development, results also suggest that sign language experience enhance the establishment of representations of manual gestures (Paper II), and that progression in ToM seem to be typical, although delayed, in RSNS pupils who are learning to read (Paper III). Taken together, the associations revealed between sign language skills and reading development support the notion that sign language skills may provide a foundation for promotion of reading skills in DHH signing children. Thus, interventions that support development of sign-based representations and their manipulation and use in written language processing, may improve reading skills in this population. To account for the present findings, a model of written language processing is proposed. Working memory has a central role in integrating environmental stimuli and language-mediated representations, and thereby provides a platform for cross-modal language processing and multimodal language development. SammanfattningEn god språklig förmåga bidrar till god läsutveckling, inte minst hos döva och hörselskadade barn. Specialpedagogiska skolmyndighetens specialskolor för döva och hörselskadade (D/H) barn har en tvåspråkig läroplan som innebär att elever på dessa skolor lär sig både svenskt teckenspråk och skriven och/eller talad svenska. De fyra arbeten som ingår i avhandlingen undersöker l...

show abstract

The Role of Language in Theory of Mind Development

Cited by 116 publications

References 66 publications

Non-linearities in Theory-of-Mind Development

Non-linearities in Theory-of-Mind Development

Syntactic Recursion Facilitates and Working Memory Predicts Recursive Theory of Mind

Signs for Developing Reading : Sign Language and Reading Development in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About