Joan Peskin, Assistant Professor in DPE

We are currently exploring when school-aged children begin to think about what their reader knows - and doesn't know - in their early compositions.  We are also examining whether there is a relationship between young children's ability to think about someone's mind (as measured by their performance on ToM tasks) and their thoughts about their future reader's mind. We will then explore questions such as: In children’s early writing is there a recapitulation of the theory of mind research which shows that children represent desires before false beliefs? What about different populations, such as children from disadvantaged homes, and older high-functioning children with Asperger’s syndrome? For children who struggle with the task, can we intervene to sensitize them to the reader’s mind? These studies will not only provide us with information about developments in the representation of mind during the school years, but can also help inform curriculum decisions and instructional programs.