Origins of Theory of Mind in deaf children
Research type
Research Study
Full title
On the origins of theory of mind - conversational input and belief attribution in deaf/hard-of-hearing infants.
IRAS ID
203941
Contact name
Lindsey C Edwards
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
City University
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
In typical development, the ability to understand mental states (i.e. beliefs, and desires) is acquired and develops through spoken communicative experiences that build upon the child’s earlier communication using gestures and pointing. By comparison, communication between hearing-impaired infants and hearing parents can be significantly impoverished.
There are three closely related objectives in the research proposed here. One is to describe and analyse for the first time the very early development of non-verbal belief-reasoning (i.e. theory-of-mind) in infants with hearing loss. The second objective is to examine how belief-reasoning is related to moral evaluation in infants. The third objective is to determine the effects of access to language and communication on infants’ social development.
A group of 40 deaf infants (i.e. infants with double-sided severe hearing loss) of hearing parents at the age of 10 to 26 months will be asked to participate. This is the youngest age of hearing infants in published research reports so far, who have reliably demonstrated their ability to form expectations about agents’ future behavior based on false beliefs.
The tasks include two measures for examining infants’ detection of others' false-beliefs (objective one), a measure of moral evaluation in fair distribution of resources (objective two) and a test of cognitive control (for general cognitive development). We will also video record around 10 minutes of parent-child interaction (objective three). The data is collected over two sessions (approximately 30 minutes each) with a break in between. Additionally, parents are asked to fill in and return the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories for British Sign Language and spoken English.
The current project will potentially underscore the need for intervention to facilitate early communicative experience and the expression of core social knowledge.REC name
London - Camden & Kings Cross Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/0487
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jun 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion