COGNITIVE-FACTORS AND FAMILY-STRUCTURE ASSOCIATED WITH THEORY OF MINDDEVELOPMENT IN YOUNG-CHILDREN

Factors associated with individual variation in false belief understan ding were examined. Sixty-eight 3- to 5-year-olds were tested on 4 sta ndard false belief tasks. General language ability and verbal memory w ere found to be significant predictors of false belief understanding a fter the effects of age were partialled out, but nonverbal memory was not. There was evidence for a threshold effect in that children did no t pass false belief tasks before they reached a certain level of lingu istic ability. False belief scores were higher in children from larger families, after the effect of age and language had been partialled ou t. Family size was more strongly associated with false belief understa nding in children who were less competent linguistically, suggesting t hat the presence of siblings can compensate for slower language develo pment in developing false belief understanding.