2007/01/25 by MARIELA RESCHES, Mariela Resches, Miguel Pérez Pereira +1
Psychology · #Child and Animal Learning Development #Educational Strategies and Epistemologies #Language Development and Disorders
paper · doi:10.1017/s0305000906007641
openalex publication_date 2007/01/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
This work aims to analyse the specific contribution of social abilities (here considered as the capacity for attributing knowledge to others) in a particular communicative context. 74 normally developing children (aged 3;4 to 5;9, M = 4.6) were given two Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks, which are considered to assess increasing complexity levels of epistemic state attribution: Attribution of knowledge-ignorance (Pillow, 1989; adapted by Welch-Ross, 1997) and Understanding of False-belief (Baron Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985). Subjects were paired according to their age and level of performance in ToM tasks. These dyads participated in a referential communication task specially designed for this research. The resulting communicative interchanges were analysed using a three-level category system (pragmatic functions, descriptive accuracy, and ambiguity of messages). The results showed significant differences among subjects with different levels of social comprehension regarding the type of communicative resources used by them in every category level. In particular, understanding of false belief seems to be the most powerful predictor of changes in the children's development of communicative competence.