ABSTRACT

The preschool years herald the onset of decisive changes in children's theories of mind (ToM). As with theory of mind, children make impressive strides in their executive skills in the preschool years. The executive functions (EF) embrace a heterogeneous set of cognitive skills that are believed to be related to the functioning of the prefrontal cortex. These skills include inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, planning, error correction and detection, and many other capacities that are implicated in the monitoring and control of thought and action. There are good reasons to suspect that executive functioning might impinge in some way on theory of mind development. In addition, the well-known deficits in ToM that are found in autism are accompanied by profound executive deficits as well. To conclude, the chapter argues that executive abilities play a critical role in the development of children's ToM.