Developmental Perspectives on Causal Language, Causal Reasoning, and Counterfactual Thinking: A Mental Space Study

Abstract

Causal reasoning allows children to learn, explain, and make sense of their surroundings, and counterfactual thinking, imagining what would have happened otherwise, is closely tied to how causes are judged. Although infants are sensitive to causal events within the first year, causal language emerges gradually, and how causal language, causal reasoning, and counterfactual thinking relate to one another across development remains further investigation. This talk presents a TÜBİTAK-funded project that examines these abilities in Turkish-speaking children. In Study 1, we used a longitudinal corpus of naturalistic caregiver-child interactions from 8 to 36 months to investigate causal language in child-directed (CDS) and child speech (CS). Caregivers’ causal talk increased with child age and plateaued around 30 months, while children’s causal language grew steadily and was linked to how often caregivers used causal language. In Study 2, we tested 5- to 6-year-olds and 9- to 10-year-olds on causal language production, causal verb production, language-based and force-dynamics causal reasoning, and counterfactual reasoning. Children’s causal reasoning was associated with the causal verbs t

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