Approximating the ZPD? Young children's judgements of appropriate task level for learning.

This research examined how 3-6-year-olds judge appropriate levels of counting games based on a person's ability, desire for learning and degree of difficulty. Study 1 found that 3-year-olds did not consider a character's ability or desire, whereas older children gave high ability characters large number games and low ability characters small number games when the characters wanted to play a manageable game. However, older children gave large number games to characters who wanted to learn counting, regardless of their ability.

Affective Theory of Mind in Late Adulthood: The Role of Emotion Complexity and Social Relatedness.

Background: Age-related declines in adult affective theory of mind (AToM) have been discovered. However, AToM measures have not accounted for emotional state complexity involved in AToM. Measures have also not accounted for different types of relationships - friends versus strangers - for which AToM is employed, which is important considering the limited social networks of aging adults.

When a Circle Becomes the Letter O: Young Children's Conceptualization of Learning and Its Relation With Theory of Mind Development.

In two independent yet complementary studies, the current research explored the developmental changes of young children's conceptualization of learning, focusing the role of knowledge change and learning intention, and its association with their developing theory of mind (ToM) ability. In study 1, 75 children between 48 and 86 months of age ( = 65.45, = 11.

Not just numeracy and literacy: Theory of mind development and school readiness among low-income children.

The current study investigated the role of theory of mind development in school readiness among 120 low-income preschool and kindergarten children. A short-term longitudinal design was used to examine relations among theory of mind, the understanding of teaching, and learning behaviors and their collective role in children's literacy and numeracy skills at school entry. Results replicate differences in theory of mind development among low-income children as compared to typically studied, higher-income samples.