ABSTRACT
This chapter provides background about the nature of theory-of-mind (ToM), focusing on children’s acquisition of false-belief understanding. It reviews several theoretical proposals, each isolating a different aspect of language as the facilitating force behind children’s emerging understanding of the mind. The chapter points to significant ToM impairments in language delayed children and adults exposed to an emerging language to argue that a rich and complex language must be in place for false-belief understanding to develop in humans. It turns to studies of false-belief understanding in three different populations-typically developing children, language-delayed deaf children, and adult native learners of an emerging sign language-to support this argument. The chapter presents several studies that confirm that language-delayed deaf children exhibit significant delays in their ToM understanding. It examines the relationship between language and false-belief understanding in learners of an emerging sign language in Nicaragua.
