YOUNG CHILDRENS UNDERSTANDING OF OTHER PEOPLES BELIEFS AND FEELINGS AND THEIR CONNECTED COMMUNICATION WITH FRIENDS

Links between experimentally assessed social understanding and natural istically observed verbal communication between friends were investiga ted in a study of 38 young children. Affective perspective-taking and false-belief tasks were administered to the children at 40 months of a ge. Connected communication between friends ( average length of connec ted episodes, average length of play episodes, and average length of p retend episodes) was coded from transcribed audiotaped conversations r ecorded from a 45-min observation when the children were 47 months of age. Performance on both social understanding tasks was significantly associated with connected communication between friends. Implications for the prognostic utility of social understanding tasks for regulatio n of real-life interactions are discussed.