Training preschoolers with language games: enhancing theory of mind, emotion understanding, prosocial orientation, and language ability

In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of a validated programme in enhancing theory of mind, emotion understanding, and prosocial orientation, as well as language ability (receptive vocabulary). Participants were 61 preschoolers (mean age: 54.03 months) attending two nursery schools, who were randomly assigned to either a training or control group. During the intervention phase of the study, the training participants listened to stories and then engaged in conversational activities drawn from the PSULG Programme, involving a word launching technique and language games. These procedures entail encouraging the use of mentalistic terms–drawn from story texts–during conversations between children, facilitated by appropriately trained adults. In contrast, children in the control group participated in drawing activities or free play after listening to the same stories. Children in both groups completed a battery of tasks during the pre-test and post-test phases of the research. Significant differences emerged between the two groups at post-test: trained participants significantly outperformed the control participants in language and global emotion understanding scores. Regarding theory of mind and prosocial orientation, we observed trends towards statistical significance. These results suggest that the PSULG Programme can positively impact children’s social understanding in the preschool context.