Environment and language experience in deaf children’s theory of mind development

We focus in this chapter on the human social cognitive ability to connect with each other at the level of dierent inner and unobservable mental states such as knowledge and beliefs; a development encapsulated in the term theory of mind (ToM). The development of children’s ToM has been a major research topic for the last 30 years and recently attention has turned to the environmental enablers of social cognition found in early parent-child interaction.