Kerstin W. Falkman

Theory of mind in children with severe speech and physical impairment (SSPI): a longitudinal study

Six children with cerebral palsy and severe speech impairment took part in a two‐phase longitudinal study of development of social cognition. The children ranged in age from 5 to 7 years old at data collection time 1 and from nine to 11 years old at data collection time 2. Using a model of normal development of Theory of Mind (ToM) suggested by Gopnik and Slaughter (1991), the children were tested on a number of tasks requiring (ToM). The findings suggest that the children with speech impairment follow a normal pattern of development, but with a severe delay compared with children without disability. The results are discussed in relation to problems in early social and communicative experience for the group of children with cerebral palsy and severe speech impairment.

Mentalizing skills of non-native, early signers: : A longitudinal perspective

Using a longitudinal design, the mentalizing skills of a group of deaf children were tested with a wide array of theory of mind tasks over a period of three years. A selection of results from the first two years of testing is reported here. The children were non-native signers, but had been offered a good regime for the development of sign language as soon as their deafness was discovered. A comparison group of hearing children matched for mental age and sex also took part. There was a wide variation in performance between children in the deaf group, both across different tasks and over time, while the hearing group performed more or less at ceiling on all of the tasks included already at the first data collection time, and showed very little variation in performance across tasks. Also, the deaf children, as well as the hearing children, performed 100% correct on a test of non-mental representation, i.e., the false-photo task (Zaitchik, 1990). The present results speak in favour of the crucial importance of early communication using a common language for the typical developmental trajectory of mentalizing skills.

Intersubjective Interaction between Deaf Parents/Deaf Infants during the Infant's First 18 Months.

This study is part of a larger longitudinal project with the aim of focusing early social interaction and development of mentalizing ability in 12 deaf infants, including the interaction between the infants and their deaf parents. The aim of the present paper is to describe early social interaction and moments of intersubjectivity between the deaf infants and their deaf parents during the first 18 months of the infants life. The study is focused on the dyadic interaction rather than on the behaviors of the infant and the caregiver separately. In the analysis, the Intersubjective Developmental Theory Model (Loots, Devisé, & Sermijn, 2003) and the definitions of moments of intersubjectivity (Loots, Devisé, & Jacquet, 2005) were used. The findings show that the participating infants follow a typical developmental trajectory of intersubjectivity, both with regard to developmental stages and age. This development is supported by a visual, simultaneous way of communicating by gaze rather than having constant eye contact. Parents use complex visual communication skills in maintaining joint attention and also expect the infant to grasp the meaning of the interaction by use of gaze contact.