Evocação de termos mentais na leitura de diferentes livros de imagens: um estudo com pré-escolares

Abstract

Theory of mind deals with mental states (desires, emotions and beliefs) and plays an important role in child social adaptation. Studies have shown that language can be very important in its development, and the expression “mental language” refers to the explicit use of semantic terms related to mental states. Researchers in this area emphasize that the use of terms to denote mental states can reflect infant understanding of mind, and that children´s storybooks, specially those that are only comprised of images, constitute a useful resource to explore and facilitate language related to mental states. This study has the purpose of investigating the occurrence of mental terms in 5-6 year-old children´s reading, in two public kindergarten schools, through the use of three children´s storybooks that have different profiles in terms of image narrative, that were classified considering its narrative structure, number of pages and pictures: Truks (Editora Ática) – simple narrative profile –, O Amigo da Bruxinha (Editora Moderna) – intermediate narrative profile –, A Bruxinha e o Godofredo (Editora Global) – a more complex narrative profile. The books were individually read by 80 children; reports were recorded, transcribed and coded into four categories of mental terms: cognitive, emotional, desire/intention and perceptive. Results show that children of both ages used terms related to mental states in image reading. Though no significant difference was observed among 5 and 6-year-olds in terms of the total of terms evoked, differences were perceptible between the two schools. Another difference was related to the total of mental terms evoked and associated with the three different books, with the biggest total corresponding to the most complex book and the smallest one being related to the book that presented a simpler narrative. There was no significant difference between the intermediate and the more complex book. As for the occurrence of terms specified by categories of mental states (cognitive, emotional, desire/intention and perceptive), it was not possible to detect a unique profile, for variations occurred according to age and school. The data suggest that not only the books´ narrative profile but also factors related to individual and cultural experiences (such as quotidian language, school experiences, and social interactions) could have both quantitatively and qualitatively influenced the diversity related to the attribution of mental states.