Storytelling is a distinctive human characteristic that may have played a fundamental role in humans’ ability to bond and navigate challenging social settings throughout our evolution. However, the potential impact of storytelling on regulating physiological and psychological functions has received little attention. We investigated whether listening to narratives from a storyteller can provide beneficial effects for children admitted to intensive care units. Biomarkers (oxytocin and cortisol), pain scores, and psycholinguistic associations were collected immediately before and after storytelling and an active control intervention (solving riddles that also involved social interaction but lacked the immersive narrative aspect). Compared with the control group, children in the storytelling group showed a marked increase in oxytocin combined with a decrease in cortisol in saliva after the 30-min intervention. They also reported less pain and used more positive lexical markers when describing their time in hospital. Our findings provide a psychophysiological basis for the short-term benefits of storytelling and suggest that a simple and inexpensive intervention may help alleviate the physical and psychological pain of hospitalized children on the day of the intervention.
O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar a interface entre cognição social e linguagem, analisando as relações entre a teoria da mente e a pragmática da linguagem em crianças com Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA). Participaram da pesquisa 24 crianças com TEA, entre 6 e 12 anos de idade. Para a avaliação das habilidades sociocognitivas foram utilizadas tarefas da escala de teoria da mente e, para a avaliação da pragmática, um instrumento de compreensão de enunciados literais e não literais (avaliados nas subcategorias: implicaturas conversacionais e expressões idiomáticas). Os resultados indicaram que: 1) as crianças manifestaram compreensão da linguagem literal significativamente superior à compreensão das implicaturas conversacionais e das expressões idiomáticas; e 2) que as crianças que acertaram as tarefas de falsa crença foram as que tiveram um desempenho melhor nos enunciados não literais de expressões idiomáticas. Esses achados dão suporte à hipótese de associação positiva entre compreensão da falsa crença e pragmática.
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