ABSTRACT
A quarter of a century ago, Dunn, Brown, Slomkowski, Tesla, and Youngblade (1991) conducted a seminal observational study of 50 33-month-olds and their mothers, which showed that variation in the frequency of talk about feelings predicted individual dierences (7 months later) in the children’s ability to explain a character’s mistaken beliefs. This pioneering study led to a dramatic growth in research on potential social inuences upon children’s developing understanding of mind. Another study, conducted by Peterson and Siegal (1995), was an important catalyst for this expanding eld of research. This second study showed that deaf children born to hearing parents (but not those born to deaf parents) displayed delays in understanding that were equivalent in magnitude to those reported for children with autism spectrum disorders (e.g. Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985). It is thus very tting that this volume, born of a celebration of Candi Peterson’s work, should coincide with the eld’s 25th birthday.
