Atribuição de estados mentais e consciência metatextual: efeitos de uma pesquisa-intervenção com a literatura infantil

Abstract

The adaptation to the social world requires the development of a set of sociocognitive abilities, especially the theory of mind that is set on understanding children's emotions, intentions and thoughts of others and themselves. Recent research indicates that social relationships depend on the development of a mentalist language as it tends to facilitate children's social understanding. In the context of formal schooling, the relationship between consciousness metatextual defined as reflection on the structure of the text and the production of children's stories has attracted the interest of scholars. This research aimed to implement a program aimed at promoting the language referring to mental states (emphasis on emotional states) and consciousness metatextual, mediated through the reading of storybooks. We also evaluated the possibility of effect of the program on the production of oral histories and socio-cognitive aspects of how the understanding of emotions and social skills, as well as gender differences. Participants were 70 students from 1st year of elementary school in a federal public school, with an average of 6 years and 9 months old, divided into: GI-intervention group composed of 37 children and GC-comparison group, composed of 33 children not participants. Following ethical procedures, it began individually a pre-evaluation in three steps: we applied the Emotional Intelligence Test for Children; Scale for self-assessment of social skills, and requested each child to tell a story that was recorded, from a picture book. At the end of the pre-intervention, the implementation of the program with the GI involving ten meetings. Completed the intervention, there was the post- intervention instruments described by them as well as their implementation by the GC. Data were tabulated and analyzed. The results indicated that the GI had an advance in understanding emotional between the pre and post-intervention, and compared to the GC. Regarding social skills, although both groups presented a better performance in the post-intervention, the results suggest an improved upper GI compared to GC. The same was found when measuring the output of oral history childish, to find an increase in performance of GI, in which the narratives began to present a more complete and sophisticated textual structure. This distinction was not detected in the GC. Differences by gender were not observed in the three variables investigated. The results suggest that the implemented program contributed to promote understanding of the emotional and social skills for children by strengthening the relationship between language, theory of mind and social development. The purpose of improving the production of oral histories was also hit. The study highlights the importance of using children's literature to promote socio-cognitive and consciousness metatextual and of the importance of educators to act as mediators of this resource for child development.