The alexithymia hypothesis posits that specific aspects of the autistic socio-cognitive profile, namely emotion recognition difficulties, can be explained by the increased prevalence of alexithymia in autistic populations. However, this hypothesis has largely been tested in adults. We tested whether co-occurring alexithymia could account for…

Moral reasoning and theory of mind (ToM) are two distinct but related aspects of social cognition. While past research has clearly documented serious delays in ToM development for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) both cross-sectionally (e.g. Happe, 1995) and longitudinally (Peterson & Wellman, 2020) much less is known about the…

Substantial research indicates that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulties with Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities, but rarely have studies used a comprehensive battery to measure both the cognitive and affective aspects of ToM. The present study tested this ability in 24 Greek-speaking children with ASD (ages 7-14), and…

The ability to deceive is a key milestone in social cognitive development for typically developing individuals. In this scoping review, we systematically searched the literature to summarise research on deceptive behaviour in autism and identify gaps in knowledge. Across the 28 studies identified, three main themes were synthesised, with seven…

We investigated whether preschoolers' social-emotional competencies predict their peer relationships and academic achievements during grade one. Measures of cool and hot executive functions, theory of mind, social-problem-solving, and peer acceptance were administered to a sample of 48 preschoolers (M = 77.91 months). Academic achievement and peer…

Pretend play may be beneficial for young children's social development. However, empirical results to date are inconsistent and limited, which is partly due to a lack of psychometrically sound measures for children's social pretend play competence. The current study aimed to compare and validate different assessment methods for children's social…

This study explored the development of theory of mind (ToM) in 80 Swedish-speaking 3- to 5-year-olds, a previously unstudied language and culture. The ToM scale was translated and tested in a Swedish context. The results show that the ToM abilities improve significantly with age. In addition, a gender difference was observed for the whole sample,…

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;…

This study investigated the motivational and social-cognitive foundations (i.e., inequality aversion, in-group bias, and theory of mind) that underlie the development of sharing behavior among 3- to 9-year-old Chinese children (N = 122). Each child played two mini-dictator games against an in-group member (friend) and an out-group member…

It is argued that self-regulation skill is necessary both for displaying constructive behaviour and for controlling negative social behaviour, and self-regulation might affect social behaviours by increasing the ability to understand others' minds. In this research, in order to examine different aspects of self-regulation and their similarities…

Theories of social-cognitive development have attributed a foundational role to declarative joint attention. The present longitudinal study of 83 children, who were assessed on a battery of social-cognitive tasks at multiple measurement points from the age of 12 to 50 months, tested a predictive model of theory of mind (false-belief…

Over the last 35 years, studies focusing in young children's knowledge about the mental world have developed into an important area. This body of social knowledge is called theory of mind, which refers to the individuals' ability to interpret and anticipate the other individuals' thinking, feeling, and behavior based on their interpretation of the…

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of a social stories intervention on the social skills of male students with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). The sample included 30 male students with ASD who were selected through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 15) or a control group (n = 15). The social…

Adolescents become increasingly sensitive to social evaluation. Some previous studies have related this change to pubertal development. The present longitudinal study examined the role of sociocognitive development. We investigated whether or not the transition to recursive thinking, the ability to think about (others') thoughts, would be…

Emotional literacy is described as being aware of our own feelings in order to improve our personal power and life quality as well as people's life quality around us. In this study, the aim is to develop a Likert scale which measures people's emotional literacy in order to be used both in descriptive and experimental researches. Related literature…