Young children whose mothers talk with them more frequently and in more detail about people’s thoughts and feelings tend to be better at taking another person’s perspective（观点）than other children of the same age.
That’s what researchers from the University of Western Australia found in a new study published in the journal Child Development.
“Parents who frequently put themselves in someone else’s shoes in conversations with their children make it more likely their children will be able to do the same,” said lead author Brad Farrant.
Researchers of the UWA’s Telethon Institute for Child Health Research looked at the influence of how parents interact with their children to learn more about how people develop the ability to take another’s perspective.
The two-year study involved more than 120 Australian children aged between four and six, including children with typically developing language and others delayed in language acquisition（习得）.
The children completed tasks which were designed to assess their language skills, ability to infer others’ beliefs and use these to predict others’ behavior, and their ability to shift flexibly between different perspectives.
Among children with typically developing language, the researchers found that mothers who talked more often and in greater detail about people’s thoughts and feelings — commenting on how another person might react to a particular situation as well as their own feelings about the topic — had children with better language skills and better perspective-taking skills.
Children with delayed language acquisition were also delayed in their development of perspective-taking skills. This displays the role played by language as children develop the ability to take another’s perspective.
“Solving the many challenges that the world faces today requires us all to get better at taking the perspective of other people,” said Brad Farrant.
小题1:According to the text, to help children gain better perspective-taking skills, parents should __________.
A．give their children more chances to express themselves
B．talk more with their children about people’s feelings
C．encourage their children to guess other people’s thoughts
D．spend more time playing with their children小题2:Which of the following is TRUE about the study?
A．Over one hundred American children took part in it.
B．All the children had delayed in language acquisition.
C．The children in the study were around five years old.
D．Mothers helped their children to complete the tasks.小题3:Which have an effect on the development of children’s perspective-taking skills?
A．The surrounding environments.
B．Mother’s perspectives.
C．Personal characters.
D．Language skills.小题4:In the last paragraph, Brad Farrant __________.
A．stressed the importance of perspective-taking skills
B．expressed his concern about the world’s challenges
C．showed how to take the perspective of other people
D．explained why other people’s opinions are important小题5:According to the text, we can learn __________.
A．parents should talk to their children frequently no matter how old their children are
B．it was Brad Farrant who wrote the study in Child Development herself
C．the only way to improve language skill is talking to children more often
D．parents who are always thinking about others will help their children do the same way
