Jämförelse mellan Theory of Mind-förmåga och pragmatisk förmåga hos svenska barn i 4 och 5 års ålder

Sammanfattning: Theory of mind involves the ability to take another person’s perspective in thought, emotions and intentions.  There is today a lack of instruments to assess children’s development of Theory of Mind (ToM) in Swedish. ToM is considered by many scientists to be the basis for development of pragmatic competence. The relationship between these two abilities is complex and not fully resolved. Both abilities are important components for the development of social skills.     The purpose of this study was to compare 4 and 5-year olds ToM-ability measured with a Swedish version of Wellman and Liu’s ToM-scale, Sally Anne and Social Emotional Test with estimated pragmatic competence measured with the Children’s Communication Checklist (CCC). To make this possible the study also aims to translate and evaluate a Swedish version of Wellman and Liu’s ToM-scale. In the study 39 children in the age of 4 and 5 years old participated (20 4-year olds and 19 5-year olds).     The present study can point to the relationship between the ToM1 ability false belief and pragmatic abilities, as well as different abilities related to pragmatics (conversational rapport, use of discourse context and prosody). Correlation between prosody and other measures of ToM1 abilities was also observed. The result can be linked to previous research on the relationship between pragmatics and ToM. ToM and pragmatic are two abilities that are linked to each other. But as the result is not entirely conclusive, they may also shed more light to the complexity of these abilities and their relationship.      The result of the evaluation of Wellman and Liu’s ToM-scale shows that most of the children got a result pattern that agreed with the hypothesis of a gradual acquisition of ToM-abilties. However, Swedish 4 year olds did to a greater extent passed questions in a pattern that was not compatible with the gradual acquisition claim than American children did in a previous study. One reason for this result may be cultural differences. More research is needed on a larger selection of subjects and a wider range of age groups before any conclusions can be drawn. However, the translated scale can be used in a qualitative way, to examine which aspects of a ToM a child comprehends.