Reciprocal association between theory of mind and reading comprehension of narrative (but not expository) text in middle childhood: A latent change score approach

Abstract

Abstract

This study presents a longitudinal evidence of co-occurring developmental changes in theory of mind (ToM) and reading comprehension in a group of 159 children (ages 8–10; M = 9.96, SD = 0.93; 92 girls). We tracked participants over one year using identical measures of ToM, narrative reading comprehension (NRC), and expository reading comprehension (ERC) at two time points. Applying a Latent Change Score (LCS) model, we found that individual differences in ToM and NRC not only influenced each other's growth over time but were also significantly correlated at both initial measurement and in their change scores. However, only initial ToM was associated with gains in ERC during the one-year interval, but not vice versa. These findings suggest a reciprocal causal relationship between socio-cognitive and academic development and highlight the importance of integrating both domains in educational interventions.

Educational relevance statement

Our findings demonstrate that Theory of Mind (ToM) and narrative reading comprehension (NRC) are reciprocally related over time, suggesting that strengthening one domain can accelerate growth in the other. Importantly, children with stronger initial abilities in either ToM or NRC experienced greater gains in the other domain, indicating the risk or widening achievement gaps without early support. Moreover, ToM predicted later gains in expository reading comprehension (ERC), underscoring its role in supporting comprehension of increasingly complex academic texts. These results suggest that integrating ToM and reading comprehension training within educational practice can enhance cognitive and academic development in tandem. Such integration may be particularly impactful for students at risk of early learning difficulties, offering a promising direction for targeted, developmentally informed interventions.

Preregistration: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/69Q5R

Data: https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/zfzd852xpg/1