Previous research on children's knowledge about the mind has primarily focused on their comprehension of false beliefs, leaving the conceptualization of thoughts and thinking less explored. To address this gap, we developed a new assessment tool, the interview about the mind (IaM), to assess children's understanding of the mind. Two studies…

In recent years, there has been increasing research interest in the development of theory of mind (ToM) in deaf children and young people and the conditions which might enable or suppress development of the set of skills involved. However, the views of practitioners working with deaf children have not been widely explored. This paper presents the…

One hundred eighteen children, divided into three age groups (4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds) participated in a competitive game designed to explore advances in children's deceptive abilities. Success in the game required children to inhibit useful information or provide misinformation in their communication with an adult opponent. Age trends were…

This study investigated the role of gender plays in the relation between children's theory of mind (ToM) and persuasion. We explored children's use of the belief information of the characters involved within a persuasive situation. In two studies, children (four- to eight-year-olds) performed a comic strip task that described a…

Children of ages 3-5 ("N" = 62) were assessed by using standard theory-of-mind tasks and unusual belief tasks related to false information and beliefs endorsing violations of moral (welfare and fairness) and social conventional (school rules) domains. Younger children (under 5 years) did not accurately attribute unusual factual beliefs…

The present investigation explored (1) fathers' contributions to children's theory of mind (ToM) development, (2) the similarity between maternal and paternal mind-mindedness (MM) in relation to children's ToM, and (3) the relative predictive strength of two concurrently administered measures of MM (an online and an interview assessment) in…

The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of family context on the performance of 5-year-old children (N = 70) in theory of mind (ToM) tasks. The children's performances were assessed during individual sessions held at school. Children's verbal skills were assessed using the Peabody picture vocabulary test (PPVT). Interviews were also…

We tested the hypothesis that mother-child warmth and responsiveness would moderate the link between young children's theory of mind skills and self-worth. Participants included 125 same-sex pairs of 3.5 year-old twins and their mothers. A battery of tests was individually administered to measure the children's theory of mind skills and verbal…