The effect of language skills on the acquisition of mind theory in children with Down syndrome

Abstract

The current study aimed at identifyi,g the performance of children with Down syndrome in the tasks of mind theory, according to their level of language and age. 60 children participated in the current study, whose ages ranged between 6 to 9 years, and they were divided into two groups (experimental group and control group). The experimental group included (30) children with Down syndrome, which were divided into three groups according to the age group. And the control group also included (30) ordinary children, who were divided into three groups according to the age. We applied to the participants an experimental design to evaluate the theory of mind, tasks of the first and second levels (intents and emotion), and the vocim test to assess the linguistic level. The results of this research revealed that there are statistically significant differences between the performance of the tasks of mind theory in children with Down syndrome, according to the language level and the chronological age.