We examine how understandings of ordinary and extraordinary communication develop. Three- to 10-year-old children and adults (N = 183) were given scenarios in which a protagonist wanted help from a human (their parent) or from God. Scenarios varied in whether protagonists expressed their desires aloud (by asking) or silently (by hoping), whether…

In their article "Mindfulness and discussing 'thorny' issues in the classroom" Konstantinos Alexakos et al. ("Cult Stud Sci Educ," 2016. doi: 10.1007/s11422-015-9718-0) describe "thorny" issues as "difficult topics to discuss because they are more personal to some perhaps even cause pain and violence." As…

The third-person belief ascription, "Marie believes that the contract is in the cabinet," may engender two interpretations: (1) It neutrally describes what is on Marie's mind and (2) it offers indirect evidence about reality, committing the speaker to the cabinet as the most likely location. The circumstances that lead to the evidential…

First-order and advanced theory of mind (ToM and AToM), and their structures and relations were investigated in 229 children aged 5-8 years. ToM was assessed using 6 tasks from the first-order ToM scale, while AToM was measured using an 18-item battery (higher-order false-belief understanding; strange stories; faux pas test; eyes test;…

Few tools are available to comprehensively describe the unique social-emotional skill profiles of youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study describes the usability, reliability, and validity of SELweb, a normed, web-based assessment designed to measure four core social-emotional domains, when used to measure these skills in a…

Background: Children's bullying involvement may arise from biases and deficiencies in social information processing, and it is important to consider cognitive and emotional aspects of bullying because social cognition is an important aspect of children's social skills and their ability to get along with others. It is also important to understand…

We investigated "scalar implicature" in adolescents and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to test whether theory of mind deficits associated with autism affect pragmatic inferences in language. We tested scalar implicature computation in adolescents with ASD (12-18 years) and asked whether they reason about mental states when…

The two prior studies that have examined associations between the sibling constellation and theory of mind in autism spectrum disorder yielded discrepant findings. Thus, efforts to better understand the sibling-theory of mind link in autism spectrum disorder are necessary. This study examined a sample of prekindergarten- and kindergarten-aged…

In an attempt to broaden participation in STEM, a new type of high school is emerging, high schools which include a focus on engineering, have few or no academic admission criteria, and actively involve students of all levels of ability, known as Inclusive STEM High Schools (ISHSs). One aspect of successful ISHSs includes the intentional and…

The present study examined the relationships between shyness, a number of personal and interpersonal variables (i.e. social skills, self-esteem, attachment style, advanced Theory of Mind skills and peer relations) in a sample of 243 Greek pre-adolescents. Participants completed self-reports of the variables. Results indicated that females scored…

Play has an important role in various aspects of children's development. However, time for free play has declined substantially over the last decades. To date, few studies have focused on the relationship between opportunities for free play and children's social functioning. The aims of this study are to examine whether children´s free play is…

The present paper attempts to recognize principles and methods of education based on Wittgenstein's picture theory of language. This qualitative research utilized inferential analytical approach to review the related literature and extracted a set of principles and methods from his theory on picture language. Findings revealed that Wittgenstein…

The singularity effect of identifiable victims is described as the greater willingness to help a single, identified victim than to help a group of victims with the same need (whether victims are identified or not), which occurs even when the single victim is one of the group's members. The current research examines the development of this…

Alexithymia is a personality trait frequently found in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and has been linked to impairments in emotion recognition and empathy. The presentation of alexithymia within ASD at younger ages remains unexplored, and was examined in the present study. Alexithymia rates were significantly elevated in ASD (55%;…

Performance of a group of 35 youth and adults with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) was compared with a typical developing (TD) group on three Advanced Theory of Mind tests. The distinction between the social-cognitive and social-perceptual components of Theory of Mind was also explored. The HFA group had more difficulties in all tasks. Performance…