Praxis SLP Licensure Exam

A child who has difficulty describing a character's feelings after a story likely has issues with which concept?

1. Theory of mind

2. Pragmatic language

3. Syntactical structure

4. Semantic language

The correct answer is: Theory of mind

The correct response highlights that a child struggling to articulate a character's feelings after a story likely has difficulties with theory of mind. Theory of mind refers to the ability to recognize and understand that others have thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that may differ from one's own. This skill is crucial for interpreting and predicting the behaviors and feelings of others in various situations, including fictional narratives. In the context of storytelling, comprehending a character's feelings involves recognizing that the character has mental states influenced by the events of the story. If a child cannot describe these feelings, it may indicate a gap in their ability to attribute mental states to the character, thus suggesting challenges with theory of mind. Other aspects such as pragmatic language, syntactical structure, and semantic language are relevant to communication but do not specifically address the difficulty in understanding emotions or perspectives of characters. Pragmatic language skills involve the social use of language, syntactical structure pertains to the rules of sentence formation, and semantic language focuses on vocabulary and meaning of words. While all these areas contribute to overall language development, the core issue presented in this scenario is directly related to theory of mind.