Promoting theory of mind and emotion understanding in preschool settings: an exploratory training study.

Introduction: This new exploratory study is part of a larger ongoing follow-up project. Its specific aim was to verify whether an innovative European Program, primarily designed to enhance children's social and emotional learning, led to gains in theory of mind and emotion understanding when implemented in preschool settings. Methods: Thirty-four children (mean age: 56.4 months; Results: Significant differences were identified between the training and control groups. Indeed, the participants in the Program training activities, which were based on conversational exchanges between an adult and a group of children, as well as among the children themselves, outperformed the control participants on both overall theory of mind and overall emotion understanding. A more detailed analysis showed that the training group outperformed the control group in relation to both specific components of EU and the 'change of location' ToM task. Discussion: The results of this exploratory study suggest that the Program is effective at enhancing preschoolers' social understanding and thus merits implementation in preschool settings.