Concurrent associations between mothers' references to internal states and children's social understanding in middle childhood

Paine, Amy L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9025-3719, Hashmi, Salim, Roberts, Siwan, Fyfield, Rhiannon and Hay, Dale F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2505-0453 2019. Concurrent associations between mothers' references to internal states and children's social understanding in middle childhood. Social Development 28 (3) , pp. 529-548. 10.1111/sode.12356

Preview

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (956kB) | Preview

Abstract

Although it is well established that features of maternal speech are associated with children’s social understanding in the preschool years, few studies explore this relationship in middle childhood. Within the context of a prospective longitudinal study of a representative community sample of families (subsample n = 207, mean age = 82.88 months), we investigated concurrent associations between mothers’ internal state language and aspects of 7‐year‐olds’ social understanding, including children’s understanding of belief and spontaneous references to internal states during free play. When sociodemographic, maternal, and child characteristics were controlled, mothers’ references to their own cognitions were associated with dimensions of children’s social understanding. Our findings suggest that exposure to others’ perspectives contributes to children’s advanced understanding of minds, which has implications for interventions that foster social understanding.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	0961-205X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	11 February 2019
Date of Acceptance:	12 December 2018
Last Modified:	03 May 2023 21:40
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/119426

Citation Data

Cited 10 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item