ERIC Number: EJ1107095
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Feb
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-7237
EISSN: N/A
Mindful Storytellers: Emerging Pragmatics and Theory of Mind Development
Fernández, Camila
First Language, v33 n1 p20-46 Feb 2013
Emerging pragmatic language skills involve social, cognitive and linguistic abilities, including children's awareness of the conversational partner's mental states. The present study investigated the relation between children's theory of mind (ToM) and features of pragmatic language skills assessed through narrative discourse. One hundred and fifteen Spanish-speaking children attending preschool and first grade (57 girls, 58 boys) participated. Children completed a standardized measure of receptive language, narrated a wordless picture book and completed first- and second-order ToM tasks. ToM was significantly related to various pragmatic language features. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that second-order ToM scores were a significant predictor of pragmatic language skills. Findings suggest that children's communicative competence in social contexts, to some extent, requires the development of higher-order social-cognitive reasoning.
Descriptors: Pragmatics, Theory of Mind, Preschool Children, Social Cognition, Communicative Competence (Languages), Receptive Language, Task Analysis, Regression (Statistics), Language Skills, Cognitive Ability, Correlation, Grade 1, Elementary School Students, Standardized Tests, Picture Books, Scores, Predictor Variables, Social Environment, Spanish Speaking, Narration, Foreign Countries, Statistical Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Grade 1; Primary Education; Elementary Education; Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Colombia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A