Acquisition of Mental State Language in Spanish Children: A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship between the Production of Mental Verbs and Linguistic Development

Autor/inn/en	Pascual, Belen; Aguado, Gerardo; Sotillo, Maria; Masdeu, Jose C.
Titel	Acquisition of Mental State Language in Spanish Children: A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship between the Production of Mental Verbs and Linguistic Development
Quelle	In: Developmental Science, 11 (2008) 4, S.454-466 (13 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1363-755X
DOI	10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00691.x
Schlagwörter	Sentences; Speech Communication; Verbs; Spanish Speaking; Language Acquisition; Foreign Countries; Cognitive Processes; Thinking Skills; Longitudinal Studies; Age Differences; Classification; Child Development; Developmental Stages; Syntax; Spain + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Sentence analysis; Satzanalyse; Sprachaneignung; Spracherwerb; Ausland; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Denkfähigkeit; Longitudinal study; Longitudinal method; Longitudinal methods; Längsschnittuntersuchung; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied; Classification system; Klassifikation; Klassifikationssystem; Kindesentwicklung; Spanien
Abstract	The development of language indicating the emergence of thinking about the thoughts of self and others has been scarcely studied in Spanish-speaking children. For this reason, we studied the development of mental state language and various indicators of language development in 25 Spanish-speaking children assessed at 3, 3 1/2, 4, 4 1/2, and 5 years of age. We coded and categorized the 40,250 utterances children produced during the five time points, 1202 (3.01%) of which had mental terms. In this sample, mental state language in Spanish children developed with a similar timeline and patterns as described in English-speaking children. However, several findings were novel for studies of mental state language. The general indexes of syntactic development did not correlate with the production of mental terms. The Index of Lexical Diversity was associated with the frequency of references to verbs of desire. The results of regression analyses suggest that not only the development of subordinate sentences with complement is associated with genuine mental references to desires and beliefs, but the development of lexical skills as well. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10