Family-level antecedents of the development of “theory of mind” and narrative comprehension in early childhood.

The ability to understand other people’s thoughts and feelings (commonly referred to as theory of mind) is related to narrative comprehension during the preschool years because children need to understand characters’ mental states to understand the meaning of a story. Little research has explored what predicts how these two skills develop together.

This project examines two family-level factors, the home literacy environment and the mental state talk parents use when reading to children, that might explain how theory of mind and narrative comprehension co-develop during early childhood. Both skills are important for school readiness because theory of mind predicts socially competent interactions with peers, and narrative comprehension predicts later reading comprehension.

Thus, understanding the predictors of theory of mind and narrative comprehension, and how they are reinforced by the same early environmental supports (such as parent-child talk about mental states), is key to developing approaches to promote these skills.

The research plan for this project includes testing preschoolers at three time points, each six months apart, using longitudinal three-way cross-lag panel design. At the first time point, the research team gathers information on the home literacy environment (such as how frequently parents read to children and the mental state language parents use when reading to children).

At each time point, the research team tests preschoolers’ theory of mind and narrative comprehension skills. The study includes additional assessments to control for the possibility that other variables (including socioeconomic status and children’s vocabulary size) contribute to the observed relations between the key variables of interest. The research plan includes recruitment of families that are diverse with respect to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

The study design allows the research team to test a novel framework that highlights shared developmental antecedents of theory of mind and narrative comprehension skills.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.