Conversational correlates of children's acquisition of mental verbs and a theory of mind

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to conduct a detailed examination of the ways mothers use mental verbs in conversations with three- and four-year-old children, and to link these usages to the children's developing understanding of mental verbs and a theory of mind. Sixty three- and four-year-olds, either attending preschool (PS) or not (NPS) were given tasks assessing mental verb distinctions and false belief. Their mothers' mental verb use was coded for (a) frequency, (b) type of utterance, (c) type of subordinate clause, (d) the person of the subject of the verb, and (e) the certainty of think. Within the three-year-olds, the NPS children performed significantly better on the mental verb comprehension task; moreover, compared to the PS mothers, the NPS mothers were found to use: (1) less statements and more questions, (2) less first person utterances and more second person utterances, and (3) think in its `very certain' form less often. In regression analyses, children's mental verb and false belief performance were positively predicted by maternal mental verb 1) questions, and 2) single clause utterances; the children's performance was negatively predicted by statements. These findings indicate how maternal input has the potential to promote or hinder children's understanding of the mind.