Theory of mind development and executive functioning in elementary school children

The following study explored the role of verbal ability and executive functioning in theory of mind understanding in elementary school children. Scores on measures of language comprehension, verbal ability (sentence memory, and forward digit span), matrix completion, executive functioning (backward digit span), and second-order theory of mind tasks were obtained. Partial correlations of the measures controlling for age revealed verbal ability to be significantly correlated with theory of mind comprehension. A regression analysis demonstrated that auditory language comprehension was the only variable, in addition to age, that explained unique variance in performance on a recursive thinking task. Possible explanations are explored and future directions are recommended.

Name thesis:degree_name

MA

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.available

1999

Author dc:creator

• Futoran, Dana Lee

Contributors dc:contributor

• Anne C. Watson.
• Katherine Karraker
• Christina Adams

• Developmental psychology

Identifier

https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/710

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchrepository.wvu.edu:etd-1713