Adults’ Talk About Mental States: Differences Across Varying Early Childhood Contexts and Associations with Dialogic Reading Practices

We examined linkages between caregivers’ mental-state language and ratings of their dialogic reading practices during shared reading of a picture-book depicting people and situations intertwined with mental states to preschoolers. The sample included 89 mothers, 34 center-based Head Start teachers, and 21 licensed family childcare educators, and was racially and ethnically diverse. Mothers explained proportionately more emotion-focused mental states in the form of questions compared to Head Start teachers and family childcare educators. However, Head Start teachers explained more non-emotion-focused mental states than both mothers and family childcare educators. With respect to dialogic reading practices, mothers and Head Start teachers were rated higher than family childcare educators on dimensions of child involvement and positive feedback. We also found a positive association between child involvement and adults’ explanations of emotions in the form of questions across all three caregiving contexts. Additionally, caregivers’ promotion of higher-order thinking was positively associated with their explanations of non-emotion-focused mental states, but this was only observed among mothers. These findings highlight the need for targeted interventions and professional development programs tailored to specific caregiving contexts to enhance caregivers’ mental-state talk and use of dialogic reading practices during shared book-reading.