Deaf Children Psychological Theory Of Development And Its Relationship With The Peer Acceptance

Until 1980s,Theory of Mind(TOM) have been a hot topic in psychology.With the development of TOM researches,deaf children are drawing more and more attentions.In this article,we analyzed the development character of deaf children's TOM,and explored factors influencing the development of deaf children's TOM.And we also explored the relationship between the development of deaf children's TOM and the peer acceptance.These helped us to understand the developmental principle of deaf children's TOM.And these conclusions are valuable in developing deaf children's TOM and their social communication skills.In this article,we concluded that:Firstly, with the growth of age,the ratios of deaf children who can get through the tasks of first-order false belief and second-order false belief were increased.But there are differences,the ratio was high on standard false belief and self false belif,but low on the implicit false belief.Secondly, There was no difference in development of deaf children's TOM in sex.Thirdly,there was a big difference between deaf children and normal children with the same age in development of TOM.Normal children developed more earlier than deaf children.Fourthly,education in school,early language environment,parents' education and family's economy condition had significant influence on deaf children's ability in first-order false belief test,but hadn't significant influence on deaf children's ability in second-order false belief test. Intelligence,only child or not hadn't significant influence both on deaf children's ability in first-order false belief and second-order false belief test.Fifthly,deaf children's TOM had significant difference in different peer status.In the first-order false belief tasks,the popular deaf chiildren's sores were the highest,significantly higher than be-refused deaf children,be-neglected deaf children and controversial deaf children. The be-refused deaf children's score was the lowest, significantly lower than others.But in the second-order false belief task,the popular deaf children's sores were the highest.Sixthly,the significantly correlation existed between deaf children's TOM and their peer acceptance. Their social preference could fairly predict their ability of first-order false belief and second-order false belief.There was a complicated and multiple relationship between deaf children's TOM and their peer acceptance.