Perspective taking ability in preschoolers in maltreating context

Journal title MALTRATTAMENTO E ABUSO ALL’INFANZIA
Author/s Ada Cigala, Arianna Mori
Publishing Year 2014 Issue 2014/3 Language Italian
Pages 20 P. 67-86 File size 98 KB
DOI 10.3280/MAL2014-003005
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The purpose of this experimental study is to evaluate perspective-taking, defined as the ability to assume another’s visual, cognitive and affective perspective, in maltreated preschoolers. 15 children (M = 58.73 months) living in "mother-child" therapeutic/ accomodation communities, victims of neglect and psychological abuse, have been compared with 15 non-maltreated peers (M = 57.80 months), living in prescriptive family environment. The data analysis did not reveal any significant differences regard to visual and cognitive dimension of perspective taking (false belief tasks and visuoperceptual tasks). Maltreated children have obtained worse performances in affective perspective taking tasks instead, demonstrating their lower ability in expressive understanding and emotional situation understanding (TEC), and in predicting their own emotion of sad.

Keywords: Maltreatment, perspective taking, preschool age, emotional competence

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Ada Cigala, Arianna Mori, Abilità di perspective taking in bambini di età prescolare in contesti maltrattanti in "MALTRATTAMENTO E ABUSO ALL’INFANZIA" 3/2014, pp 67-86, DOI: 10.3280/MAL2014-003005