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Early social experience predicts referential communicative adjustments in five-year-old children.

ABSTRACT: A large body of work has focused on children's ability to attribute mental states to other people, and whether these abilities are influenced by the extent and nature of children's social interactions. However, it remains largely unknown which developmental factors shape children's ability to influence the mental states of others. Building on the suggestion that collaborative experiences early in life might be crucial for the emergence of mental coordination abilities, here we assess the relative contribution of social exposure to familial and non-familial agents on children's communicative adjustments to their mental model of an addressee ('audience design'). During an online interactive game, five-year-olds spontaneously organized their non-verbal communicative behaviors according to their beliefs about an interlocutor. The magnitude of these communicative adjustments was predicted by the time spent at daycare, from birth until four years of age, over and above effects of familial social environment. These results suggest that the degree of non-familial social interaction early in life modulates the influence that children's beliefs have on their referential communicative behavior.

SUBMITTER: Stolk A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3757022 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Early social experience predicts referential communicative adjustments in five-year-old children.

Stolk Arjen A Hunnius Sabine S Bekkering Harold H Toni Ivan I

PloS one 20130829 8

A large body of work has focused on children's ability to attribute mental states to other people, and whether these abilities are influenced by the extent and nature of children's social interactions. However, it remains largely unknown which developmental factors shape children's ability to influence the mental states of others. Building on the suggestion that collaborative experiences early in life might be crucial for the emergence of mental coordination abilities, here we assess the relativ ...[more]

PMID: 24009696

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Project description:ObjectivesThe purpose of our study was to investigate the association of different socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors with dental caries in six-year-old children. Furthermore, we applied a district based approach to explore the distribution of dental caries among districts of low and high socioeconomic position (SEP).MethodsIn our cross-sectional study 5189 six-year-olds were included. This study was embedded in a prospective population-based birth cohort study in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, the Generation R Study. Parental education level, parental employment status, net household income, single parenting, and teenage pregnancy were considered as indicators for SEP. Dental caries was scored on intraoral photographs by using the decayed, missing, and filled teeth (dmft) index. We compared children without caries (dmft=0) to children with mild caries (dmft=1-3) or severe caries (dmft >3). Multinomial logistic regression analyses and binary logistic regression analyses were performed to study the association between SEP and caries, and between district and caries, respectively.ResultsOnly maternal education level remained significantly associated with mild caries after adjusting for all other SEP-indicators. Paternal educational level, parental employment status, and household income additionally served as independent indicators of SEP in children with severe caries. Furthermore, living in more disadvantaged districts was significantly associated with higher odds of dental caries.ConclusionDental caries is more prevalent among six-year-old children with a low SEP, which is also visible at the district level. Maternal educational level is the most important indicator of SEP in the association with caries.Clinical significanceOur results should raise concerns about the existing social inequalities in dental caries and should encourage development of dental caries prevention strategies. New knowledge about the distribution of oral health inequalities between districts should be used to target the right audience for these strategies.

Dataset Information

Early social experience predicts referential communicative adjustments in five-year-old children.

Publications

Early social experience predicts referential communicative adjustments in five-year-old children.

Similar Datasets

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