Many children with hearing loss have atypical social communication skills despite having age-appropriate speech and language. Graduate assessments in an early intervention program for children with hearing loss indicated that despite achieving language skills within typical limits for over a decade, social skills development was frequently…

The acquisition of theory of mind (ToM) -- the ability to attribute mental states to explain others' behaviors -- is a critical milestone in children's cognitive development. Previous research has established that deaf children experience significant delays in ToM compared to hearing children within the same culture. However, prior studies were…

Anticipating future interactions is characteristic of our everyday social experiences, yet has received limited empirical attention. Little is known about how children with autism spectrum disorder, known for their limitations in social interactive skills, engage in "social anticipation." We asked children with autism spectrum disorder…

Relations among indices of maternal mind-mindedness (appropriate and nonattuned mind-related comments) and children's: (a) internal state vocabulary and perspectival symbolic play at 26 months ("N" = 206), and (b) theory of mind (ToM) at 51 months ("n" = 161) were investigated. Appropriate comments were positively…

Background: The sociocommunicative problems in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are traditionally linked to impairments in Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to ascribe mental states to others. Although ToM impairments are consistently reported in young children with ASD, findings on more advanced ToM understanding in older individuals with…

This paper presents a selective review of the literature addressing the influence of young children's conversational environments and interactions on their psychological understanding of persons. Our dual purposes are to reveal some consensus on the current state of knowledge and to foster a programmatic approach to future research. The initial…