Both syntactic and pragmatic sentence adequacy matters for recursive theory of mind in 5-year-olds

Filip, Anna; Białek, Arkadiusz; Białecka‐Pikul, Marta

doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2023.101297

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…For hearing children, this more advanced component of ToM (SOFB) was not related to some of the language components to which simpler, first-order belief performance had been linked in prior studies, such as vocabulary (Schick et al, 2007) or grammar (Farrar et al, 2009). These results are partially in line with those obtained by other scholars focusing on SOFB, namely Filip et al (2023), who reported that in 5-6-year-olds, neither syntactic comprehension nor vocabulary production explained SOFB understanding, whereas syntactic recursion and pragmatics did. In another study, Bigelow et al (2021) found that vocabulary was associated with advanced ToM in both young and old children.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Expressive syntax matters for second-order false belief: a study with hearing-impaired children

Serrat,

Amadó,

Durrleman

et al. 2024

Front. Commun.

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While children with typical language development may capitalize on general language skills to grasp the content of others’ minds, those with challenges in mind-reading could rather rely more specifically on complementation structures. However, most studies investigating mind-reading have focused on first-order false-belief reasoning, while much less is known about second-order false-belief, particularly for children that may present language difficulties, such as children with hearing impairment. This study aims to explore the link between language development and second-order false-belief in hearing-impaired children compared to their hearing counterparts. It seeks to ascertain whether mastering second-order false-belief requires the comprehension of complements or other language skills in hearing-impaired children, and if a distinct pattern emerges in their hearing peers. Children with hearing-impairment (n = 22) and a chronological age-matched control group (n = 25), ages 8–12, were administered a second-order false-belief task (carefully avoiding use of complements and highly visual). Alongside this, they completed assessments of expressive vocabulary, receptive and expressive syntax, recalling sentences, and a recursive sentential complements task. Correlational analysis revealed that in the control group only productive syntax was related to performance on the second-order false-belief task, while in the hearing-impaired group, expressive vocabulary, recalling sentences and sentential complements were related to second-order false-belief performance. These results show that vocabulary, recursive complements and expressive syntax are particularly important aspects for second-order false-belief success in children with hearing-impairment as compared to their hearing peers. These results shed light on how language and second-order false-belief understanding are related in their development.

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