Theory of Mind and Developmental Processes

Theory of mind is the ability of understanding people’s behavior by reasoning about mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Much theory of mind research has focused on the basic formations of the preschool children’s first-order theory of mind. Theory of mind abilities after the preschool years, have been called second-order theory of mind, are being investigated how they differ from first-order theory of mind using new resarch methods and tasks. Despite a growth of research on how theory of mind continues to develop and differentiates beyond the early childhood, the theory of mind literature in Turkey has remained limited to the preschool period. This paper reviewed avaliable research on first and second-order theory of mind to explore the essence of the theory of mind and aimed to contribute to existing body of literature in Turkey on theory of mind of children without any disabilities