Young Children's Development of Understanding Self, Other, and Language

Abstract

It has been pointed out that there are at least three types of perspective-taking abilities: to infer what other people see (perceptual), to infer what other people feel (affective), and to infer what other people think (cognitive). These three types of perspective- taking abilities should be integrated into a unified theory of understanding another's mind. In this paper, I will first discuss a unified theory of understanding another's mind in young children including their perspective-taking abilities, theory of mind and display rules. These three topics relate to young children's concepts of self and other. Secondly, I will discuss the role of language or verbal communication to conceptualise self and other. Caregivers' participa- tion in conversations with children, and interactions between peers contribute significantly to the nature of the concepts of self and other.