Emotion comprehension in pre-schoolers: the role of verbal working memory, linguistic skills, and theory of mind

Children's emotion comprehension is crucial for healthy social and academic development. Behaviours influenced by emotion comprehension in childhood have received much attention, but less focus has been placed on factors that may affect individual differences in emotion comprehension during pre-school years. Researchers have identified several interacting abilities that may relate to a child's capacity to understand and interpret emotions. This cross-sectional study investigated the relationship among Executive Functions (verbal working memory), language skills (grammar comprehension), and Theory of Mind in 104 pre-schoolers (mean age = 4.5 years), with Emotion Comprehension. Results show that age, verbal working memory, and Theory of Mind are associated to children emotion comprehension, whereas linguistic skills are directly associated only to children's Theory of Mind and indirectly through ToM to emotion comprehension. The implications of the findings on direct and indirect relationships with emotion comprehension are discussed for theoretical and research development on socio-cognitive skills.