This study is part of a larger research project in progress regarding the effect of mental state talk training on preschool children’s understanding of the mind. In this context, we present the results concerning 3 years old participants. Our aim was to investigate the role of language games in theory of mind development. More precisely, on the basis of a pragmatic and socio-constructionist approach (Nelson, 2004, 2007) we predicted that by stimulating children to use mental state talk, and not only by being exposed to it (Peskin, Astington, 2004), would improve their comprehension of the mind. Participants were 37 Italian children (mean age: 40,9 months; standard deviation: 3,52) divided in two groups: experimental group (n = 20) and control group (n = 17), equally divided by gender. The study was carried out through three phases. Firstly, each child was tested with the following measures: a test of language assessment (TVL, Cianchetti & Sannio Fancello, 1997), a Metacognitive Vocabulary Test (MVT, Pellettier & Astington, 1998), a first order false belief task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983), the subscale ‘Pragmatics’ of the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL, Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999), and the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC, Pons & Harris, 2000). Secondly, over a 2-month period, children were read, twice a week and in small groups, illustrated stories enriched with the following mental state verbs: desiring, getting angry, becoming scared, believing, thinking, deciding, remembering and knowing. Each word-target was presented twice, through two different stories and training sessions. By using the technique of ‘word launching’ (Ciceri, 2001) the researcher brought into action the language games in order to foster the children’s use of mental states talk. On the contrary, children belonging to the control group after listening to the story were simply let playing. Finally, all the participants were re-tested by using the same measures in a counterbalanced order. As predicted, independent sample T-test analysis show that after the training the experimental group children outperformed the control group on the understanding of mental state lexicon (t=3,67; df=35; p=.001), the emotion comprehension (t=2,19; df=35; p=.03), the understanding of words and sentences (t=2,83; df=35; p=.008), and the pragmatic competences (t=1,75; df=35; p=.08: this last case would not be statistically significant by conventional standards). The results underlines the utility of training preschool children in using mental state talk in order to improve not only their language ability, but also their understanding of the mind.
Ornaghi, V., Grazzani, I. (2008). Can 3 year-old children be trained to use mental state talk in order to increase their understanding of the mind?. Intervento presentato a: Workshop on Pragmatics and Social Cognition, London, University College.
Can 3 year-old children be trained to use mental state talk in order to increase their understanding of the mind?
ORNAGHI, VERONICA MARIA;GRAZZANI, ILARIA
2008
Abstract
This study is part of a larger research project in progress regarding the effect of mental state talk training on preschool children’s understanding of the mind. In this context, we present the results concerning 3 years old participants. Our aim was to investigate the role of language games in theory of mind development. More precisely, on the basis of a pragmatic and socio-constructionist approach (Nelson, 2004, 2007) we predicted that by stimulating children to use mental state talk, and not only by being exposed to it (Peskin, Astington, 2004), would improve their comprehension of the mind. Participants were 37 Italian children (mean age: 40,9 months; standard deviation: 3,52) divided in two groups: experimental group (n = 20) and control group (n = 17), equally divided by gender. The study was carried out through three phases. Firstly, each child was tested with the following measures: a test of language assessment (TVL, Cianchetti & Sannio Fancello, 1997), a Metacognitive Vocabulary Test (MVT, Pellettier & Astington, 1998), a first order false belief task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983), the subscale ‘Pragmatics’ of the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL, Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999), and the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC, Pons & Harris, 2000). Secondly, over a 2-month period, children were read, twice a week and in small groups, illustrated stories enriched with the following mental state verbs: desiring, getting angry, becoming scared, believing, thinking, deciding, remembering and knowing. Each word-target was presented twice, through two different stories and training sessions. By using the technique of ‘word launching’ (Ciceri, 2001) the researcher brought into action the language games in order to foster the children’s use of mental states talk. On the contrary, children belonging to the control group after listening to the story were simply let playing. Finally, all the participants were re-tested by using the same measures in a counterbalanced order. As predicted, independent sample T-test analysis show that after the training the experimental group children outperformed the control group on the understanding of mental state lexicon (t=3,67; df=35; p=.001), the emotion comprehension (t=2,19; df=35; p=.03), the understanding of words and sentences (t=2,83; df=35; p=.008), and the pragmatic competences (t=1,75; df=35; p=.08: this last case would not be statistically significant by conventional standards). The results underlines the utility of training preschool children in using mental state talk in order to improve not only their language ability, but also their understanding of the mind.
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