Parallel relations of pretend play, social competence, and theory of mind development in preschool aged children

The current study examined children's theory of mind understanding and social behaviors. The purpose of the study was to explore the developmental relations among preschool aged children's false-belief and appearance-reality understanding, pretend play, and social competence.;Children were observed in their natural play environments and tested for theory of mind understanding using standard and nonstandard false-belief and appearance-reality tasks. Thirty-one children (M=4 years, 0 months) participated in this study. All participants were observed for quality of pretend play and social competence and tested for theory of mind understanding using standard and non-standard false-belief and appearance-reality tasks. Children were screened prior to observation and theory of mind testing using a color and object test and the PPVT-III.;Children in this study were observed during free play for a total of 60 minutes over three separate visits. Types of play included in the observation were: Parallel Play, Simple Play, Complementary Reciprocal, Solitary Pretend Play, Cooperative Pretend Play, and Complex Pretend Play. Observations of social behaviors were conducted during free play for a total of 60 minutes over three separate visits. Each visit the researcher completed four quality rating scales for a total of 12 observations of social competence. A Likert scale for social competence was used and ranged from 1-very characteristic to 5-not very characteristic. Children's understanding of implicit and explicit understanding of theory of mind was examined using one standard false-belief and one standard appearance-reality task. Implicit theory of mind understanding was examined using one nonstandard false-belief and one nonstandard appearance-reality task.;Results indicated trends for development of theory of mind understanding and its relation to social behaviors. Appearance-reality appeared to develop prior to false-belief understanding. Implicit knowledge appeared to develop before explicit knowledge for appearance-reality understanding. Positive social behaviors were associated with theory of mind understanding, although solitary pretend play and behaviors going against social norms indicated a negative relation to theory of mind performance. Limitations on the false-belief tasks were explored.