Learning to write is a complex process involving linguistic, cognitive, and socio-emotional factors. From a developmental perspective, little research has explored the content of young children's writings in terms of specific cognitive skills such as Theory of Mind (TOM). This study explores how young children's writing may foster representations…

This study examined the relationship between mental state term use in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children engaged in play. Expression of mental state terms was used as an indicator of theory of mind (ToM) skills. Archived data were used to compare mental state term use for five ASD-TD dyads engaged…

The current study examined relations between distinct aspects of moral functioning, and their cognitive and emotional correlates, in preschool age children. Participants were 171 typically developing 3- to 6-year-olds. Each child completed several tasks, including (a) moral tasks assessing both performance of various moral actions and evaluations…

Text social information includes the cognitive processes and social communication skills that support real or hypothetical human thought or interaction. The current measure of text social information is genre. However, genre is a limited measure because of poor operationalization, limited specificity, and overlap with structural and linguistic…

There has, to date, been little discussion of how autism may affect the experience of the reading of fiction for pupils in the classroom, other than through a deficit model. One of the researchers in this study ("Celia") is training to be a secondary school English teacher and identifies as autistic. Her experience provides an enriched…

It has been debated whether the progressive emergence of theory of mind (ToM) in autistic children is compatible with a "delayed" or "different" development model, and whether and how the sequential consolidation of ToM concepts is subject to cross-cultural variations in autistic and typically developing (TD) children. To study…

Empathy entails basic cognitive processes such as the recognition of facial expressions and basic emotional processes such as emotional contagion, but also higher-order cognitive processes such as abstract reasoning about the other person's emotional states and higher-order emotional processes such as empathic concern. Thus, empathy must be…

Many young people with autism spectrum disorder display 'challenging behaviours', characterised by externalising behaviour and self-injurious behaviours. These behaviours can have a negative impact on a young person's well-being, family environment and educational achievement. However, the development of effective interventions requires greater…

The aim of this study was to examine whether the valence and origin of emotional words can alter perception of ambiguous objects in terms of warmth versus competence, fundamental dimensions of social cognition. 60 individuals were invited into the study focusing on the limits of intuition. They were asked to try to guess the meaning of Japanese…

Previous research has clearly demonstrated that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) involves deficits in multiple neuropsychological functions, such as executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM). A conceptual distinction is commonly made between cool and hot EF. In ASD, continued attention has been paid to the cool areas of executive dysfunction.…

The study focuses on the mental state language kindergarten teachers use when narrating picture stories. The aims were to examine (a) individual differences in the frequency with which kindergarten teachers use mental state terms, (b) the types of mental state terms (e.g., emotion, desire, belief terms) teachers use most frequently, and (c) the…

Younger and older adults differ in performance on a range of social-cognitive skills, with older adults having difficulties in decoding nonverbal cues to emotion and intentions. Such skills are likely to be important when deciding whether someone is being sarcastic. In the current study we investigated in a life span sample whether there are…

The ability to understand and effectively interact with others is a critical determinant of academic, social, and life success (DiPerna & Elliott, 2002). An area in particular need of scalable, feasible, usable, and scientifically sound assessment tools is social-emotional comprehension, which includes mental processes enlisted to encode,…

Using an experimental approach, our study examined the differentiated effects on pre-schoolers' social cognition of two short-term social information processing (SIP) and Theory of Mind (ToM) training sessions dealing with emotions and beliefs. The links between ToM, SIP, and social adjustment or externalizing behavior were examined. 47…