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Part of
Narrative, Literacy and Other Skills: Studies in intervention
Edited by Edy Veneziano and Ageliki Nicolopoulou
[Studies in Narrative 25] 2019
► pp. 109–128

Chapter 5
Enhancing mental state language and emotion understanding of toddlers’ social cognition

The role of narrative and conversation

| University of Milano-Bicocca
| University of Milano-Bicocca
| University of Milano-Bicocca
| University of Milano-Bicocca
| University of Milano-Bicocca

This study investigated whether conversing about emotions in day-care center enhanced toddlers’ spontaneous use of mental state language and emotion understanding, both of which are key components of social cognition. In the course of a three-month intervention, the children assigned to the experimental condition (N = 29) participated daily in bookreading sessions of stories with high emotional content. Bookreadings were followed by a conversation, held in small groups, about the emotional states featured in the stories. The children assigned to the control condition (N = 28), after listening to the same stories, engaged in free play. At post-test, children in the experimental condition significantly outperformed the control group on measures of mental state language and emotion understanding, even after controlling for verbal abilities and age. These findings suggest the value of having children as young as 2–3 years participate in conversational activities about emotional experiences and inner states.

Keywords: social cognition, mental state language, emotional lexicon, emotion understanding, intervention study
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Mental state language and emotion understanding: Longitudinal and intervention studies
  • The present study
    • Method
      • Participants
      • Research phases, instruments and materials
      • The Child’s first vocabulary (primo Vocabolario del bambino, PVB)
      • The intervention phase
    • Fidelity to instructions of teachers’ interventions
  • Results
    • Children’s mental state language production
    • Emotion understanding
  • Discussion
  • Limitations and educational implications
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 6 May 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.25.06gra
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