SynthesisFrontiers in psychology2019
Systematic Review and Inventory of Theory of Mind Measures for Young Children.
Synthesis in Frontiers in psychology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 142 citations in OpenAlex.
- Reliability of Theory of Mind Tasks in Schizophrenia, ASD, and Nonclinical Populations: A Systematic Review and Reliability Generalization Meta-analysis.Neuropsychology review · 2025Pooled it
- Examining whether adults with autism spectrum disorder encounter multiple problems in theory of mind: a study based on meta-analysis.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2023Pooled it
- Understanding social cognition in children with cerebral palsy: exploring the relationship with executive functions and the intervention outcomes in a randomized controlled trial.European journal of pediatrics · 2024Trial
- Brief Report: A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of RECALL (Reading to Engage Children with Autism in Language and Learning) for Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2021Trial
- A multi-study validation of the Turkish Early Social Cognition Inventory (T-ESCI) in infants and toddlers.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- A Verbal Behavior Analysis of Theory of Mind: Conceptual and Applied Implications.Perspectives on behavior science · 2026Article
- On Benchmarking Human-like Intelligence in Machines.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2026Article
- Assessing Theory of Mind in Children: A Tablet-Based Adaptation of a Classic Picture Sequencing Task.Child psychiatry and human development · 2025Article
- Re-evaluating Theory of Mind evaluation in large language models.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Theory of Mind Development in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Individuals: A Systematic Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Tinnitus: Does it Lead to Impairments in Metacognitive Functions and the Theory of Mind Skills?Turkish archives of otorhinolaryngology · 2025Article
- Targeting cognitive biases to improve social cognition and social emotional health.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Desires and beliefs: the development of second-order Theory of Mind reasoning in preschoolers and in school-age children.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Towards fluid human-agent collaboration: From dynamic collaboration patterns to models of theory of mind reasoning.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2025Article
- Free Will as Defined by the Constrained Disorder Principle: a Restricted, Mandatory, Personalized, Regulated Process for Decision-Making.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2024Review
- Designing, implementation and evaluation of story reading: a solution to increase general empathy in medical students.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- The longitudinal relations between mental state talk and theory of mind.BMC psychology · 2024Article
- The role of social cognition in mental health trajectories from childhood to adolescence.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2024Article
- Psychometric Properties of the Theory of Mind Task Battery (French Version) in Neurotypical Children and Intellectually Disabled Children.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Promoting theory of mind and emotion understanding in preschool settings: an exploratory training study.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Theory of mind (TOM), the ability to infer mental states to self and others, has been a pervasive research theme across many disciplines including developmental, educational, neuro-, and social psychology, social neuroscience and speech therapy. TOM abilities have been consistently linked to markers of social adaptation and have been shown to be affected in a broad range of clinical conditions. Despite the wealth and breadth of research dedicated to TOM, identifying appropriate assessment tools for young children remains challenging. This systematic review presents an inventory of TOM measures for children aged 0-5 years and provides details on their content and characteristics. Electronic databases (1983-2019) and 9 test publisher catalogs were systematically reviewed. In total, 220 measures, identified within 830 studies, were found to assess the understanding of seven categories of mental states and social situations: emotions, desires, intentions, percepts, knowledge, beliefs and mentalistic understanding of non-literal communication, and pertained to 39 types of TOM sub-abilities. Information on the measures' mode of presentation, number of items, scoring options, and target populations were extracted, and psychometric details are listed in summary tables. The results of the systematic review are summarized in a visual framework "Abilities in Theory of Mind Space" (ATOMS) which provides a new taxonomy of TOM sub-domains. This review highlights the remarkable variety of measures that have been created to assess TOM, but also the numerous methodological and psychometric challenges associated with developing and choosing appropriate measures, including issues related to the limited range of sub-abilities targeted, lack of standardization across studies and paucity of psychometric information provided.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.