TODDLERS' VOCABULARY ABOUT THE MIND : A CROSS-LINGUISTIC STUDY USING THE INTERNAL STATE LANGUAGE QUESTIONNAIRE

Abstract

This paper will present internal state language data in both French- and English-speak- ing children. Using a Mental Lexicon Questionnaire adapted from Bretherton and Beeghly's (1982) list of internal-state words, our results demonstrated that on average, English-speaking infants (n= 95, mean age= 32.57 months, SD= 1.52) were producing 64% of the 78 internal state words included in the checklist. While no gender differences emerged in our sample, we found a main effect for category of words. Replicating Bretherton and Beeghly's (1982) findings, our results revealed that infants used perceptual (e.g. look, listen) and physiological (e.g. hungry, tired) internal state words more often than moral judgment/obligation (e.g. good, should) or cognition (e.g. know, think) terms. Recently, we have created a French adaptation of the Mental Lexicon Questionnaire to examine the acquisi- tion of internal state words in French-speaking children. Our paper will report data on the produc- tion of internal state words in a sample of 76 children (mean age= 32.66 months, SD=1.43) using the French version of the questionnaire. In addition, we will compare the internal state language vocabu- lary collected with the English and French versions of the checklist. Taken together, our findings will allow, for the first time, a comprehensive examination of internal state language abilities in a large sample of French- and English-speaking children. In addition, our attempt to replicate Bretherton and Beeghly's (1982) findings using the Mental Lexicon Questionnaire will allow us to explore the validity of both the English and French versions of this internal state language assessment tool.