Exploring factors of Theory of Mind development in hearing impaired preschool children with cochlear implants

Introduction The Theory of Mind is the social-cognitive ability of an individual to attribute mental states (Astington, 2000). Findings of studies suggest the fact that ToM is associated to speech and is connected to other psychosocial skills (Holmer, Heimann and Rudner 2016). The aim of the study is to clarify whether there are any connections between the ToM and the development of speech with CI children.

Method The group included N= 21 CI children (CIK) with an average age (LA) of 4;2 years (J) (SD=0,8; 3;0 – 5;9 J) and an average CI usage-period of 2;3 J (SD=1). The control group consisted of 20 children with normal hearing capacities (NHK) with an average age of 4;7 J (SD=0,9; 3;0 – 5;9 J). Among others, a newly designed, modified and widely language-free testing method for the ToM following Wellmann & Liu (2004) as well as parts of the patholinguistic development diagnostics (PDSS) were applied as measuring instruments.

Results The CIK children had an average result of 4,5 (SD=0,1) compared to the NHK children with 5,7 (SD = 0,125). This is a notable difference (p=0,01).

In the complete group, significant correlations appeared between the ToM and the LA (r=0,68; p<0,01) as well as the state of speech: percentile rank (PR) in relation to PDSS nouns with r=0,4 (p=0,01) and PR in relation to PDSS verbs with r=0,39 (p=0,02).

Conclusion The NHK children show significantly better results regarding the ToM than the CIK children. Age and state of speech are crucial factors. Therefore, an integral assistance – including linguistic and psychosocial skills- is essential.

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Publication History

Article published online:
10 June 2020