Lecce, Serena, Bianco, Federica, Devine, Rory T, Hughes, Claire and Banerjee, Robin (2014) Promoting theory of mind during middle childhood: a training program. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 126. pp. 52-67. ISSN 0022-0965

PDF (For REF only) - Published Version Restricted to SRO admin only Download (352kB)

Abstract

Evidence that conversations about the mind foster improvements in theory of mind (ToM) is growing, but their efficacy in typically developing school-aged children has yet to be demonstrated. To address this gap, we designed a conversation-based training program for 9- and 10-year-olds and measured its effectiveness by pre- and post-test comparisons of performance on age-appropriate ToM tasks for two groups (matched at pre-test for gender, age, socioeconomic background, verbal ability, reading comprehension, executive functions, and ToM) who were assigned to either the intervention condition (n=45) or an active control condition (n=46). The intervention group showed significantly greater gains in ToM than the control group; this contrast was stable over 2 months, and (in a subsample) the improvement in ToM was independent of any changes in executive functions. Implications for the role of conversations about the mind in children's mental state reasoning are discussed.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Psychology > Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion
Depositing User:	Lene Hyltoft
Date Deposited:	31 Jul 2015 12:43
Last Modified:	04 Feb 2021 14:16
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/55894

View download statistics for this item

📧 Request an update