Mind-mindedness och kommunikativ utveckling : Samband mellan moderns mentaliseringsyttranden och barnets senare språkliga och kommunikativa utveckling

Sammanfattning: Mind-mindedness refers to the mother’s ability to treat her child as an individual with a mental life of his or her own. In the present study, the purpose is to investigate the relationship between the amount of mind-related comments the mother produces when the child is 9 months of age and the child’s development in language and communication at the age of 15 months. The hypothesis is that the amount of mind-related comments the mother produces has a positive affect on the child’s language abilities as well as his or her ability to initiate joint attention. The number of mind-related comments were identified according to the guidelines of Meins and Fernyhough (2006). Language development were measured with the parent questionaire SECDI, Swedish early communication development inventory (Eriksson & Berglund, 1999). The child’s communicative abilities were measured with ESCS, Early social communication skills (Mundy et al. 2003). A positive correlation between the amount of mind-related comments by the mother and the use of communicative gestures by the child, were observed. No further significant relationships were found in support of the hypothesis in the present study. The results are discussed in relation to earlier research concerning mind-mindedness and communicative development.