No concurrent correlations between parental mental state talk and toddlers’ language abilities

Abstract

Abstract Mental State Talk (MST) is utterances describing invisible mental aspects. The first aim of this study was to investigate the characteristics of Parental MST and Child MST and their concurrent association in a Swedish population, and the second aim was to relate these MST measures to the children’s general language abilities. Seventy-seven dyads of parents and their 25-month-old toddlers participated. MST was assessed by videotaping the dyads during free-play sessions in a laboratory and general language abilities were based on parental reports. Forty-nine toddlers did not produce MST, while all parents used MST. Child MST was positively associated with vocabulary and grammar. Parental MST was not associated with Child MST nor the children’s general language abilities. In exploratory analyses, Parental MST referred to another than the child was positively correlated with vocabulary and grammar. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings and continue studying MST in different linguistic contexts.