Abstract
Children’s metacognitive and theory of mind development have been the subjects of intensive research during the last two decades. These two strands of research have proceeded independently, in spite of their shared interest in children’s growing awareness of their own and others’ mental processes. The aim of the present chapter is to review some recent initiatives to establish connections between these two research fields. The chapter is organized into three sections. The first section introduces the metacognition and theory of mind constructs and provides a brief overview of evidence regarding the age that these two abilities begin to develop. The second discusses reasons for the separation between the metacognition and theory of mind research fields. The third section outlines two theoretical models which attempt to integrate theory of mind within a larger metacognition framework and discusses some recent studies that aimed to explore developmental relationships between: (a) children’s theory of mind and metamemory abilities, and (b) children’s theory of mind and metacognitive language.
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Notes
- 1.
False belief understanding is just one of the multiple facets of the ToM construct. ToM encompasses a range of reasoning abilities besides the ability to comprehend false beliefs. Other manifestations of ToM include the ability to distinguish appearance from reality, the ability to comprehend the distinction between desire and intention, and the ability to understand knowledge. Studies have shown that all these abilities are mastered before the age of 6 years (e.g., Flavell, Flavell, & Green, 1983; Pillow, 1999; Schult, 2002).
- 2.
It is worth noting that in recent years, several researchers have abandoned the term “theory of mind” in favour of the term “social understanding” (e.g., Nelson, Plesa, & Henseler, 1998), in an attempt to emphasize the central role that children’s inferences about the mind hold for social interaction.
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Misailidi, P. (2010). Children’s Metacognition and Theory of Mind: Bridging the Gap. In: Efklides, A., Misailidi, P. (eds) Trends and Prospects in Metacognition Research. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6546-2_13
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