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