“These findings show how a mother’s ability to tune-in to her baby’s thoughts and feelings early on helps her child to learn to empathize with the mental lives of other people,” says Elizabeth Kirk, lecturer in the psychology department at University of York.
“This has important consequences for the child’s social development, equipping children to understand what other people might be thinking or feeling.”
“These results are significant as they demonstrate the critical role of conversational interaction between mothers and their children in infancy,”
