The ability to represent the mental states of others (i.e., Theory of Mind, ToM) is vital for social interaction. There is limited information on ToM knowledge in children with specific language impairment (SLI). These children have deficient language abilities that cannot be explained by hearing, cognitive, or neurological problems. Furthermore, children with SLI experience difficulty in initiating and maintaining social pretend play. Language, pretend play, and ToM typically develop in concert, which may indicate that they share an underlying capacity for representation. Given that language is deficient in children with SLI, these children may have problems with ToM, which might be related to their social behaviors during pretend play. This study was the first to investigate the association between ToM and pretend play in children with and without SLI. Twenty-two children with SLI and 22 with typical development (TD), between 48-71 months of age, participated in this study. Children engaged in a variety of ToM tasks and participated in two pretend play assessments: a standardized pretend play assessment and a role play activity. Children with SLI scored significantly lower on ToM tasks and engaged less often in some sophisticated forms of pretend play than their age-matched peers with TD. After controlling for language and SES, there were no significant associations between ToM and pretend play in children with and without SLI. When language groups were analyzed individually, different patterns of associations emerged for children with and without SLI. ToM was positively associated with pretend play in children with TD but negatively associated in children with SLI. Moreover, inconsistent patterns of associations were observed for some children with SLI (i.e., poor ToM understanding but sophisticated pretend play or vice versa). This study demonstrated that children with SLI may also have concomitant problems in ToM and pretend play, which may have implications for clinical assessment and intervention. The study contributes to the literature by investigating the link between ToM and different forms of sophisticated pretend play in children with and without SLI. Given the different patterns of partial correlations, future investigation of the relationship between ToM and pretend play relationship is warranted.

“Theory of mind” (ToM) has become an important theoretical construct in developmental psychology. It refers to the everyday ability to make sense of human behaviour, through an understanding of people as mentalising beings. This understanding is often assessed through a classic false belief test, though there is vast individual difference in the age at which this test is passed: most children pass the task at around the age of 4 years, with a range in the age of competence anywhere from 3 to 5 years in typically developing children. Given this considerable variation, much research in this field has examined factors which predict these individual differences, with one such line of enquiry focussing on social interaction experiences which might predict false belief task success. Research along this vein has examined factors such as family conversations and maternal language, though the aim of the current thesis was to examine the role of uniquely childish social interactions that might foster ToM. This focus was inspired by the finding that children who have siblings develop ToM precociously compared to singleton (only) children, suggesting that child-to-child interactions may indeed be particularly important for ToM development. Two uniquely childish interactions were chosen for examination: pretend play and conflict. While examining each of these social interactions, a somewhat novel methodological approach of a parent questionnaire was adopted, rather than direct, observational methods. Thus a secondary aim of the current thesis was to determine if the rich resource of parents could be usefully tapped to obtain information about child interactions. The first 2 empirical chapters of this thesis focussed on pretend play. The first chapter examined the question of whether pretence and ToM are linked in a cognitive sense, that is, whether understanding in pretence precedes understanding in belief, and whether these 2 areas of understanding are related to each other. This was achieved through 4 experiments, which replicated then modified the procedures of Custer (1996) and Hickling, Wellman and Gottfried (1997), using a sample of 210 children. The results of the experiments within this chapter suggested that pretence understanding did not precede belief understanding. However, pretence understanding was associated with ToM, begging the question as to why this might be so. The proposition offered was that the social and communication qualities of pretence might be more pertinent to ToM development than its representational qualities. Thus, in the second study of the current thesis, pretence was re-examined in relation to ToM, though this time, the social engagement attributes of this activity were focussed on. A total of 50 children were tested on their language ability and false belief, while their mothers completed a questionnaire about their play behaviour with their closest-in-age sibling. The results suggested that only social pretend play was related to ToM, not solitary pretend play. Moreover, within the context of social pretence, only games that were likely to involve role play were found to be related to ToM, other themes of pretence were not. In combination, the results of Study 1 and 2 of the thesis gave limited support to the proposed association between pretend play and theory of mind. Only social, role-play pretence was found to be relevant. Given that role play pretence is known to involve negotiations of roles and plans of action, it was proffered that children’s conflictual interactions with their peers might be a more fruitful area to explore in relation to ToM development. Therefore, the third and fourth studies in this thesis shifted focus towards children’s conflict interactions. In the third study, 54 children were tested on their language ability and false belief performance, while their mothers concurrently completed a questionnaire about children’s conflict behaviours with their closest-in-age sibling. The emotional qualities of children’s disputes with their siblings served as the primary focus of investigation, though other elements such as overall frequency, diversity, and mode of resolution were also examined. The results suggested that children who were able to remain relatively calm emotionally, both during and at the end of their sibling disputes, had the most advanced ToM understanding. The interesting and novel findings of Study 3 prompted further investigation of conflict interactions in relation to ToM. In study 4, a sample of 69 children was examined. Parents completed a questionnaire about sibling and peer disputes conjointly, which included rating the emotional qualities of these disputes as well as their child’s reasoning strategies during these interactions. Children were tested on their language ability, ToM and executive functioning. The results of this final study indicated that children with more advanced reasoning styles performed better on tests of false belief, and contrary to Study 3, the emotional qualities of their disputes were not significantly related to false belief. However, there was significant overlap between children’s reasoning style and the emotional qualities of their peer and sibling disputes, in that, children who had more advanced reasoning abilities tended to have calmer emotions during their conflicts. A further, novel finding of study 4 was the fact that the association between children’s argument styles and their false belief performance was mediated by their executive functioning skills for inhibitory control. Strengths and limitations are addressed in the final general discussion chapter. It is concluded that, although the questionnaire procedure adopted in the current thesis requires further validation, and longitudinal follow on of the results are warranted, the current thesis has substantially added to the extant literature. It has done so by providing a thorough analysis of 2 uniquely childish social interactions in relation to ToM, and through consideration of mediational influences of inhibitory control on these associations. In achieving these aims, the current thesis has suggested that parent questionnaires show promise as a means of obtaining rich information about children’s social interactions.

In everyday life, there are many situations that elicit emotional reactions to an individual's plight, leading to empathic thoughts and helping behaviors. But what if the observed situation involves fictional characters rather than real life people? The main goal of this dissertation was to investigate the extent that empathic thoughts and helping behaviors characterize children's responses to fictional social interactions, as well as to real ones. Another goal was to develop a new measure of prosocial behavior. In Study 1, 60 undergraduate students (36 female; Mage = 19.87, SDage = 4.46) played two computerized ball-tossing games, one with 3 co-players who were believed to be other students and one in which a ball was tossed between 3 walls. During the second half of each game, one of the co-players/walls was excluded by the other two co-players/walls; the participant's subsequent increase in passes to the excluded co-player/wall was recorded. Participants increased their passes to the excluded real co-player more than to the excluded wall, indicating that the increase in the Real Condition were attempts to help another person, rather than simply to even out the distribution of passes. Study 2 extended these findings to children and tested the relationship between reactions to real and fictional social interactions. Seventy-one 5- and 8-year-old children (36 females; 35 5-year-olds: Mage = 5 years, 8.2 months, SDage = 2.4 months; 36 8-year-olds: Mage = 8 years, 6.5 months, SDage = 2.9 months) played the computerized ball tossing game with (1) other children they believed to be real, (2) novel cartoon characters, and (3) walls. One of the co-players/walls was excluded in the second half of each game. Although children reported similar empathic reactions towards the excluded real and fictional co-players, they increased their passes to the excluded real co-player more than to the excluded fictional character or wall (controlling for individual differences in real life empathy). These results suggest that children's emotional reactions to what they experience in fiction and in real life are similar, but they take the behavioral steps to help another individual only when that individual is believed to be a real person.

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本篇論文主要在探討漢語親子假裝遊戲 (pretend play) 中的後設溝通(metacommunication)，研究問題如下：1. 不同年齡的幼兒使用哪些後設溝通策略(metacommunicative strategies) 來架構其假裝遊戲？2. 在幼兒所使用的策略中有哪些語言表徵 (linguistic features)？3. 不同年齡的幼童使用後設溝通策略時是否會有發展上的差異？研究結果發現不同年齡的幼兒後設溝通策略的運用的確呈現發展上的差異，年齡較大的孩童在運用後設溝通策略架構假裝遊戲的技巧比年齡較小的孩童來的熟練與複雜，而這些策略運用上的不同則可能是因為語言及認知發展上的差異導致而成 ◦ / This thesis aims to investigate how children with different age initiate, maintain, and terminate pretend play through metacommunication. There are three research questions proposed: first, what metacommunicative strategies are used to organize children’s pretend play? Second, what are the linguistic features of these metacommunicative statements? Finally, does children’s use of metacommunication display a developmental trend? Participants included in the present study are two Mandarin-speaking children. Both are female. One aged two years and nine months old and the other is four years and five months old. Analytic framework adopted in this thesis is mainly derived from Giffin’s model. Giffin (1990) advanced a framework comprising seven metacommunicative strategies: enactment, ulterior conversation, underscoring, storytelling, prompting, implicit pretend structuring, and overt proposals to pretend. Results indicate that there are six metacommunicative strategies adopted by children during pretend play: enactment, ulterior conversation, underscoring, prompting, implicit pretend structuring, and overt proposals to pretend. Both children show a strong bias in favor of within-frame metacommunication during pretend play. In addition, there are linguistic features observed in these metacommunicative strategies. These linguistic features display children’s discrepancies in language development before and after three years old. Besides, how children with different age organize their pretend play through metacommunication is quite different. It has been observed that a four-year-old adopts ulterior conversation and overt proposals to pretend to initiate pretend play. On the other hand, a two-year-old child uses ulterior conversation and implicit pretend structuring as her play initiation strategies. As for play maintaining, older children develop various sub-plots or recapitulate the action format in order to sustain their play. Unlike older children, younger children’s ability to maintain pretend play is limited. However, it is observed that children as young as two years old are able to re-introduce the play theme into the dialogue after play partner’s interruption or digression. Furthermore, a four-year-old gives some concluding statements to end her pretend play while a two-year-old does not. As a result, the overall organization of older children’s pretend play is more complete than younger children’s. Our findings reveal the developmental trend of children’s use of metacommunication in pretend play and this developmental trend is closely related to children’s language and cognitive development.

O brincar de faz de conta pode promover o desenvolvimento cognitivo e competência, assim como, a autorregulação e a capacidade de tomar iniciativa. É uma habilidade cognitiva a qual pode ser identificada por três importantes ações durante o brincar que são: a utilização de um objeto no lugar de outro, a utilização e atribuição de alguma propriedade, ou a referência a algum objeto/ação que está ausente. Alterações no brincar de faz de conta podem levar a problemas de aprendizagem, restrições na participação social e na interação com pares, portanto, torna-se importante a avaliação desta habilidade para se verificar atrasos de desenvolvimento infantil e possibilitar intervenções antes da idade escolar prevenindo déficits de aprendizagem. Sabe-se, entretanto, que no caso de um instrumento elaborado em outra cultura, não basta uma simples tradução para outra língua para ser utilizado em outro país, já que diferenças de hábitos e costumes podem desencadear uma desvantagem cultural nos resultados da avaliação. Diante disto o presente estudo tem como objetivo verificar a validade da versão do ChIPPA, adaptada transculturalmente para o Brasil, em crianças brasileiras com três anos de idade e organizar o escore normativo para tal população. Participaram desta pesquisa 200 crianças, de ambos os sexos. As propriedades psicométricas do instrumento foram verificadas por meio de análises estatísticas referentes à reprodutibilidade (testereteste), confiabilidade intra e interobservador e validade do constructo. O ChIPPA apresenta escores normativos divididos nos seguintes domínios: PEPA convencional (36 a 41 meses); PEPA Convencional (42 a 47 meses gênero masculino); PEPA Convencional (42 a 47 meses gênero feminino); PEPA Simbólico (36 a 41 meses gênero masculino); PEPA Simbólico (36 a 41 meses gênero feminino); PEPA Simbólico (42 a 47 meses); PEPA Combinado (36 a 41 meses); PEPA Combinado (42 a 47 meses gênero masculino); PEPA Combinado (42 a 47 meses gênero feminino); NOS Simbólico e NOS Combinado. Além disso, apresenta o escore do NOS Convencional e os escores do NIA Convencional, Simbólico e Combinado. A confiabilidade intra e interobservador foi considerada de satisfatória a excelente em quase todos os atributos avaliados, exceto no atributo NIA Convencional na confiabilidade interobservador. A confiabilidade teste-reteste foi considerada uma confiabilidade pobre em todos os atributos mensurados, de acordo com o Kappa e ICC. Somente no teste de Wilcoxon, a maioria resultou na igualdade dos conjuntos teste-reteste, exceto os relativos ao atributo NOS e PEPA simbólico. Apesar dessa limitação, conclui-se que o ChIPPA é considerado válido, confiável e adequado para ser aplicado na população alvo de crianças brasileiras de 3 anos de idade. / Playing make-believe can promote cognitive development and competence, as well as selfregulation and the ability to take initiative. It is a cognitive skill which can be identified by three important actions during play, which are: the use of an object in place of another, the use and assignment of any property, or reference to a missing object/action. Changes in playing make-believe can lead to learning problems, restrictions in social participation and in interaction with peers, therefore becomes important to evaluate this ability to check for delays of child development and enable intervention before the school age, preventing deficits learning. It is known, however, that in the case of an instrument developed in another culture, a simple translation into another language is not enough for the instrument to be used in another country, since differences in habits and costumes can trigger a cultural disadvantage on the evaluation results. Given this, the present study aims to verify the validity of the version of ChIPPA, culturally adapted to Brazil in children three years of age and organizing normative scores for this population. Will participate in this study 200 children, of both sexes. To examine the psychometric properties of the instrument, the results will be statistically analyzed regarding reproducibility (test-retest), intra and interobserver and construct validity. The ChIPPA presents normative scores divided into the following areas: PEPA conventional (36 to 41 months); PEPA Conventional (42 to 47 months males); PEPA Conventional (42 to 47 months females); PEPA Symbolic (36 to 41 months males); PEPA Symbolic (36 to 41 months female); PEPA Symbolic (42 to 47 months); PEPA Combined (36 to 41 months); PEPA Combined (42 to 47 months males); PEPA Combined (42 to 47 months females); NOS Symbolic and NOS Combined. It also presents the score of NOS conventional and scores NIA Conventional, NIA Symbolic and NIA Combined. Intra and interobserver reliability was considered satisfactory to excellent in almost all attributes except the NIA Conventional attribute in interobserver reliability. Test-retest reliability was considered a poor reliability in all measured attributes, according to the Kappa and ICC. Only Wilcoxon test, most resulted in the equal joint test-retest, except those related to the NOS symbolic and symbolic PEPA attribute. Despite this limitation, it is concluded that the Chippa is considered valid, reliable, and suitable to be applied in the target population of Brazilian children 3 years old.

O brincar de faz de conta pode promover o desenvolvimento cognitivo e competência, assim como, a autorregulação e a capacidade de tomar iniciativa. É uma habilidade cognitiva a qual pode ser identificada por três importantes ações durante o brincar que são: a utilização de um objeto no lugar de outro, a utilização e atribuição de alguma propriedade, ou a referência a algum objeto/ação que está ausente. Alterações no brincar de faz de conta podem levar a problemas de aprendizagem, restrições na participação social e na interação com pares, portanto, torna-se importante a avaliação desta habilidade para se verificar atrasos de desenvolvimento infantil e possibilitar intervenções antes da idade escolar prevenindo déficits de aprendizagem. Sabe-se, entretanto, que no caso de um instrumento elaborado em outra cultura, não basta uma simples tradução para outra língua para ser utilizado em outro país, já que diferenças de hábitos e costumes podem desencadear uma desvantagem cultural nos resultados da avaliação. Diante disto o presente estudo tem como objetivo verificar a validade da versão do ChIPPA, adaptada transculturalmente para o Brasil, em crianças brasileiras com três anos de idade e organizar o escore normativo para tal população. Participaram desta pesquisa 200 crianças, de ambos os sexos. As propriedades psicométricas do instrumento foram verificadas por meio de análises estatísticas referentes à reprodutibilidade (testereteste), confiabilidade intra e interobservador e validade do constructo. O ChIPPA apresenta escores normativos divididos nos seguintes domínios: PEPA convencional (36 a 41 meses); PEPA Convencional (42 a 47 meses gênero masculino); PEPA Convencional (42 a 47 meses gênero feminino); PEPA Simbólico (36 a 41 meses gênero masculino); PEPA Simbólico (36 a 41 meses gênero feminino); PEPA Simbólico (42 a 47 meses); PEPA Combinado (36 a 41 meses); PEPA Combinado (42 a 47 meses gênero masculino); PEPA Combinado (42 a 47 meses gênero feminino); NOS Simbólico e NOS Combinado. Além disso, apresenta o escore do NOS Convencional e os escores do NIA Convencional, Simbólico e Combinado. A confiabilidade intra e interobservador foi considerada de satisfatória a excelente em quase todos os atributos avaliados, exceto no atributo NIA Convencional na confiabilidade interobservador. A confiabilidade teste-reteste foi considerada uma confiabilidade pobre em todos os atributos mensurados, de acordo com o Kappa e ICC. Somente no teste de Wilcoxon, a maioria resultou na igualdade dos conjuntos teste-reteste, exceto os relativos ao atributo NOS e PEPA simbólico. Apesar dessa limitação, conclui-se que o ChIPPA é considerado válido, confiável e adequado para ser aplicado na população alvo de crianças brasileiras de 3 anos de idade. / Playing make-believe can promote cognitive development and competence, as well as selfregulation and the ability to take initiative. It is a cognitive skill which can be identified by three important actions during play, which are: the use of an object in place of another, the use and assignment of any property, or reference to a missing object/action. Changes in playing make-believe can lead to learning problems, restrictions in social participation and in interaction with peers, therefore becomes important to evaluate this ability to check for delays of child development and enable intervention before the school age, preventing deficits learning. It is known, however, that in the case of an instrument developed in another culture, a simple translation into another language is not enough for the instrument to be used in another country, since differences in habits and costumes can trigger a cultural disadvantage on the evaluation results. Given this, the present study aims to verify the validity of the version of ChIPPA, culturally adapted to Brazil in children three years of age and organizing normative scores for this population. Will participate in this study 200 children, of both sexes. To examine the psychometric properties of the instrument, the results will be statistically analyzed regarding reproducibility (test-retest), intra and interobserver and construct validity. The ChIPPA presents normative scores divided into the following areas: PEPA conventional (36 to 41 months); PEPA Conventional (42 to 47 months males); PEPA Conventional (42 to 47 months females); PEPA Symbolic (36 to 41 months males); PEPA Symbolic (36 to 41 months female); PEPA Symbolic (42 to 47 months); PEPA Combined (36 to 41 months); PEPA Combined (42 to 47 months males); PEPA Combined (42 to 47 months females); NOS Symbolic and NOS Combined. It also presents the score of NOS conventional and scores NIA Conventional, NIA Symbolic and NIA Combined. Intra and interobserver reliability was considered satisfactory to excellent in almost all attributes except the NIA Conventional attribute in interobserver reliability. Test-retest reliability was considered a poor reliability in all measured attributes, according to the Kappa and ICC. Only Wilcoxon test, most resulted in the equal joint test-retest, except those related to the NOS symbolic and symbolic PEPA attribute. Despite this limitation, it is concluded that the Chippa is considered valid, reliable, and suitable to be applied in the target population of Brazilian children 3 years old.

No description available.