How Do Language Skills Relate to a Theory of Mind?
A recent investigation of Theory of Mind skills in children who are deaf (Language and Theory of Mind, funded by NIDCD to de Villiers, de Villiers, Schick, and Hoffmeister) attempted to determine whether deaf children were equally delayed in tasks that used language and those that didn’t. It also explored what aspects of the children’s development might be related to their understanding of the mind. The study included 176 children with a profound hearing loss representing three groups: 86 children being educated orally (53 with hearing aids, 33 with cochlear implants), 41 deaf children with hearing families learning American Sign Language (ASL), and 48 deaf children with deaf families exposed to ASL from birth. Unlike most previous studies, all children using ASL were tested by deaf adults who were native signers of ASL, and interpreters were not used. Not surprisingly, the deaf children with deaf parents performed much like hearing children, while the children with hearing parents wer
