Talking About the Mind: Mental-State Language and Theory of Mind Performance in Preschoolers

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the understanding that other individuals have separate desires, thoughts, and beliefs from one’s own. Researchers have found significant relations between ToM and language competencies; however, the way in which these two skills are related is still unclear. The present study examines if a specific language skill—the use of mental state vocabulary—is related to ToM in preschoolers. To examine this, 40 local preschoolers completed the WPPSI (an expressive vocab. battery), a ToM scale, and a novel narration task. The study has two main hypotheses: that children who used more mental-state terms in their narrations would perform better on the ToM scale, and that mental-state word usage would be a better predictor of ToM performance than expressive vocabulary alone (WPPSI). The results did not indicate a significant relation between ToM and mental-state word usage, but did reveal a significant positive correlation between WPPSI scores and ToM, supporting the second hypothesis, but not the first