Representing the mind: adult talk to speech-delayed preschoolers

There is evidence from a range of studies that adult input influences a young child's language development Of interest is how adult input contributes to emotional and cognitive understandings. Children with special needs in mainstream schools are expected to develop social skills which entails the understanding of a situation from the perspective of other participants. The question is whether children with a speech delay hear adult language that helps them develop a theory of mind. The study of the acquisition of a theory of mind has focused on children who have been asked to carry out tasks demonstrating their understanding of what another person might be thinking. Tager-Flusberg et al. (2001) have found that children who perform better on theory of mind tasks are children who talk about thoughts and feelings. The present study looks at mental state language input provided to children that might help them learn to talk about thoughts and feelings. Activities involving children and their mothers, and activities in a preschool program were studied for cognitive and emotional content in the adult input. The input provided to normally developing children would be more supportive of the development of their talk about thoughts and feelings.