The influence of narrative competence on mental state talk in kindergarten and primary school children

Abstract

This study investigates the relationships between narrative competence and mental state talk at different age levels. Specifically, we explored whether a higher level of structure in narratives is associated with children's mental state talk, and whether this effect is moderated by age (kindergarten, lower and upper primary school). The participants in the study were 172 Italian children. The children were asked to tell a story and their productions were coded for narrative structural level and mental state talk. Data showed higher levels of narrative structure were associated with a higher frequency of emotional, cognitive, moral, and socio-relational terms. Results of the present study contributed to improve our understanding about how mental state talk and narrative competence are associated in different ways at different ages. This result suggests that children may develop in the ability to coordinate mental state talk and narrative structure as an effect of both, age and schooling.

Investigating Children’s Ability to Express Internal States through Narratives and Drawings: Two Longitudinal Studies during Pandemic

“…The possibility to resume the path of emotional development can certainly be linked to different factors such as children’s personal resources, characteristics of the surrounding adults who explain to them the events they have experienced and school resources. These changes were detected despite the reduced proportion of words referring to mental states compared to the total number of words (about 7% of production), and the presence of a gradual increase in narrative abilities, in line with what has been documented by previous studies [ 19 , 25 ]. However, the comparison between the post- and the first lockdown period (T3 versus T2) also detects a decrease in psychological lexicon referable to cognitive states, which was not expected based on previous studies.…”

“…For example, the use of words such as “happy” (positive emotion), “hope” (willingness state), and “becoming friends” (socio-relation) refers to internal states reflecting multiple domains. The ability to refer to internal states evolves from the earliest stages of linguistic development and is subsequently consolidated in relation to the process of schooling and activities such as composing and understanding texts [ 13 , 19 ]. During preschool years and middle childhood, cognitive development (e.g., working memory and executive functions) enhance children’s theory of mind understanding and use of psychological lexicon [ 20 ].…”

“…Around the age of 5 years, the child reaches the ability to refer to the psychological reactions of characters in narrated stories. Its presence and development in oral [ 21 ] and written [ 22 ] narratives are widely documented in preschoolers [ 19 , 23 ] and school-aged children [ 24 ]. It is from this age onwards that children tend to recall more frequently the wishes, intentions, aims and emotions of the protagonists described in the stories.…”

Children’s Mental State Talk, Empathy, and Attachments to Companion Animals

“…Null gender differences were also found in terms of bonding with companion animals, as well as mental state language. Such null findings support previous research that also shows no gender differences in children's mental state language as well as moral orientation in terms of caring or justice (Jaffe & Hyde, 2000;Tarchi, Bigozzi, & Pinto, 2019). It is important to note that the null result of the gender comparison in the frequency of emotion and cognition words might also be due to the low overall frequency of mental state language among children's answers, since the vast majority of words focused on physical action.…”

Tangible digital collaborative storytelling in adolescents with intellectual disability and neurodevelopmental disorders

“…Telling a story requires knowledge and memory of the structure of events and representations (Iandolo, 2021;Mandler, 1984;Nelson, 1989;Westby, 1991), theory of mind (Abbeduto et al, 2004;Flynn, 2018;Siller et al, 2014;Tarchi et al, 2019), relational models, context and socio-cultural elements (McCabe et al, 2006;Nelson, 1999).…”