Rory T Devine
Biographic Data
| ID | 1464873 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rory T Devine |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rory T |
| FAMILY NAME | Devine |
| SIGNATURE | DEVINE R T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3710-7878 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 29 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Children’s Theory of Mind and Academic Achievement
Children’s theory of mind (ToM) is critical for academic success, yet its associations with reading comprehension and mathematics remain unclear. This pre-registered meta-analysis synthesizes findings from 53 studies, including 12,347 participants aged 2.5 – 17 years. Results revealed a significant overall association between ToM and academic achievement ( r = .32), which: (i) did not differ across domains (i.e., reading, mathematics, general ach…
Less is More
This longitudinal study examines different domains of parenting as independent predictors of gains in children's executive function (EF). Day‐long naturalistic audio recordings of family talk were gathered at Time 1 for 70 children from England (40 girls, M age = 5.41 years, SD = 0.33; 85.7% of caregivers had degree‐level education), alongside remote observations of parent‐child dyads (87.1% mothers) engaging in a 5‐min structured play task, whic…
Changes in children’s well-being and mental health across the early school years
The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between children's well-being and mental health in the early years of primary school and the developmental association between well-being and mental health and children's early social and academic skills. Two hundred fifty-two children (131 girls, M age = 5.40 years, 80% White) and their caregivers (89.8% mothers) from the United Kingdom participated in a 1-year longitudinal study. Children…
Longitudinal development of theory of mind in adolescence and its associations with fiction reading experience
The high occurrence of social content in children's fiction may provide opportunities for practicing and refining emerging understanding of others' thoughts, feelings, and desires, referred to as "theory of mind" (ToM). The aim of the present study was to test this potential developmental benefit by longitudinally examining ToM development in middle childhood and adolescence, as well as examining associations between children's reading experience…
Links Between Child Executive Function and Adjustment
Cross-site comparisons indicate that East Asian children typically excel on tests of executive function (EF), but interpreting this contrast is made difficult by both the heavy reliance on testing in school settings and by the scarcity of studies that assess across-site measurement invariance. Addressing these gaps, our study included remote home-based assessments of EF for 1002 children (Mage = 5.19 years, SD = 0.51; 49% male) from England, Hong…
Children in ethnically diverse classrooms and those with cross-ethnic friendships excel at understanding others' minds
This study examined the link between classroom ethnic diversity, cross-ethnic friendships, and children's theory of mind. In total, 730 children in the United Kingdom (54.7% girls, 51.5% White) aged 8 to 13 years completed measures of theory of mind in 2019/2020. Controlling for verbal ability, executive function, peer social preference, and teacher-reported demographic characteristics, greater classroom ethnic diversity provided opportunities fo…
The effect of peers’ theory of mind on children’s own theory of mind development
While there is considerable evidence that children's early ability to understand others' mental states, called "theory of mind," is shaped by family experiences, it remains unclear whether children's social interactions at school influence theory of mind (ToM) beyond early childhood. We tested whether the mean level ("quantity") and/or the diversity ("variety") of peers' ToM influenced children's own ToM. We also examined whether peer effects on …
Developmental links between well-being, self-concept and prosocial behaviour in early primary school
BackgroundWell-being is a key aspect of children's education, yet measurement issues have limited studies in early primary school.AimsThe current 12-month longitudinal study assesses the temporal stability of child- and parent-reported school well-being and examines developmental links with academic self-concept and parent-rated prosocial behaviour.Sample(s)We tracked a sample of 206 children across the transition from the first (T1) to the secon…
Mind-mindedness in new mothers and fathers
This study examined the development of caregiver mind-mindedness-defined as the propensity to see one's child as an agent with an independent mind-across the first 1,000 days of life. At four time-points (i.e., third trimester of pregnancy, 4, 14, and 24 months postpartum), 384 first-time mothers ( M age = 32.55, SD = 3.63 years) and fathers ( M age = 33.96, SD = 4.40 years) gave 5-minute speech samples about their infant that were coded for mind…
Mind what teacher says
This study examined the link between theory of mind (ToM) in middle childhood and teachers’ propensity for mental‐state language and self‐reported conversational‐instruction strategies. Multilevel analyses on 430 Italian children (221 girls, M age = 9.34 years, SD = .63, Range: 7.95–11.43 years) from 27 primary‐school classrooms and their teachers showed that: (i) there were striking between‐classroom differences in children's ToM; (ii) teachers’…
Theory of Mind and Peer Attachment in Adolescence
A growing body of research on theory of mind (ToM) highlights its significance for childhood social outcomes. Extending the developmental scope of this work, the current study investigated links between advanced ToM abilities and peer attachment in adolescence. Polish adolescents (16 to 18 years old; N = 302; 57.6% girls) completed two advanced ToM measures and reported on their peer attachment. With the effects of age and language controlled, gi…
Infant screen exposure links to toddlers' inhibition, but not other EF constructs
Technology is pervasive in homes of families with young children, despite evidence for negative associations between infant exposure to screen‐based media and cognitive development that has led the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to discourage parents from exposing children under the age of 18 months to any kind of screen time (AAP, 2016). Here, we apply a propensity score matching approach to estimate relations between electronic screen‐bas…
Family Correlates of False Belief Understanding in Early Childhood
This meta-analysis seeks to integrate findings from 25 years of research on family correlates of young children's false belief understanding (FBU). Using data from 93 studies of 3- to 7-year-old children, we examined the correlations between FBU and four of the most widely studied family factors: parental socioeconomic status, number of siblings, parental mental-state talk, and mind-mindedness. FBU exhibited modest associations with each family v…
Family support and gains in school readiness
BACKGROUND: Traditional measures of school readiness are labour-intensive and do not assess family support. AIMS: The current study used the newly developed Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI: Hughes, Daly, Foley, White and Devine 2015) to examine 6-month longitudinal stability and change in teachers' ratings of young children's school readiness and investigate the role of family support as a predictor of school readiness. SAMPLE: = 3.98…
School readiness in children with special educational needs and disabilities
BACKGROUND: There is an urgent need to accelerate the detection of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). A recent brief questionnaire designed for teachers and nursery staff, the Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI), shows promising psychometric properties (Hughes, Daly, Foley, White, & Devine, . British Journal of Educational Psychology, 85(3), 332-356.), but has yet to be evaluated as a tool for detecting children who may h…
Theory of mind in middle childhood
The vast majority of studies on theory of mind (ToM) have focused on the preschool years. Extending the developmental scope of ToM research presents opportunities to both reassess theoretical accounts of ToM and test its predictive utility. The twin aims of this longitudinal study were to examine developmental relations between ToM, executive function (EF), and teacher-rated social competence in middle childhood. One hundred thirty-seven children…
Measuring the foundations of school readiness
BACKGROUND: Early work on school readiness focused on academic skills. Recent research highlights the value of also including both children's social and behavioural competencies and family support. AIMS: Reflecting this broader approach, this study aimed to develop a new and brief questionnaire for teachers: The Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI). SAMPLE: The main sample, recruited from the north-west of England, included 1,456 children…
Relations Between False Belief Understanding and Executive Function in Early Childhood
The association between executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) has been hotly debated for 20 years. Competing accounts focus on: task demands, conceptual overlap, or functional ties. Findings from this meta-analytic review of 102 studies (representing 9,994 participants aged 3–6 years) indicate that the moderate association between EF and one key aspect of ToM, false belief understanding (FBU) is: (a) similar for children from different…
Sexual Identity & Human Occupation
The dearth of literature within occupational science regarding the relationship between sexual identity and human occupation has been noted. This constituted a gap in knowledge that warranted exploration in a discipline that strives to understand the meaning individuals place on occupations and how occupations enable adaptation. A small‐scale qualitative study was undertaken within Dublin, Ireland to explore the influence of sexual identity on th…
Theory of mind in middle childhood
The vast majority of studies on theory of mind (ToM) have focused on the preschool years. Extending the developmental scope of ToM research presents opportunities to both reassess theoretical accounts of ToM and test its predictive utility. The twin aims of this longitudinal study were to examine developmental relations between ToM, executive function (EF), and teacher-rated social competence in middle childhood. One hundred thirty-seven children…
Sexual Identity & Human Occupation
The dearth of literature within occupational science regarding the relationship between sexual identity and human occupation has been noted. This constituted a gap in knowledge that warranted exploration in a discipline that strives to understand the meaning individuals place on occupations and how occupations enable adaptation. A small‐scale qualitative study was undertaken within Dublin, Ireland to explore the influence of sexual identity on th…
Measuring the foundations of school readiness
BACKGROUND: Early work on school readiness focused on academic skills. Recent research highlights the value of also including both children's social and behavioural competencies and family support. AIMS: Reflecting this broader approach, this study aimed to develop a new and brief questionnaire for teachers: The Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI). SAMPLE: The main sample, recruited from the north-west of England, included 1,456 children…
Developmental links between well-being, self-concept and prosocial behaviour in early primary school
BackgroundWell-being is a key aspect of children's education, yet measurement issues have limited studies in early primary school.AimsThe current 12-month longitudinal study assesses the temporal stability of child- and parent-reported school well-being and examines developmental links with academic self-concept and parent-rated prosocial behaviour.Sample(s)We tracked a sample of 206 children across the transition from the first (T1) to the secon…
Mind-mindedness in new mothers and fathers
This study examined the development of caregiver mind-mindedness-defined as the propensity to see one's child as an agent with an independent mind-across the first 1,000 days of life. At four time-points (i.e., third trimester of pregnancy, 4, 14, and 24 months postpartum), 384 first-time mothers ( M age = 32.55, SD = 3.63 years) and fathers ( M age = 33.96, SD = 4.40 years) gave 5-minute speech samples about their infant that were coded for mind…
Changes in children’s well-being and mental health across the early school years
The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between children's well-being and mental health in the early years of primary school and the developmental association between well-being and mental health and children's early social and academic skills. Two hundred fifty-two children (131 girls, M age = 5.40 years, 80% White) and their caregivers (89.8% mothers) from the United Kingdom participated in a 1-year longitudinal study. Children…
Longitudinal development of theory of mind in adolescence and its associations with fiction reading experience
The high occurrence of social content in children's fiction may provide opportunities for practicing and refining emerging understanding of others' thoughts, feelings, and desires, referred to as "theory of mind" (ToM). The aim of the present study was to test this potential developmental benefit by longitudinally examining ToM development in middle childhood and adolescence, as well as examining associations between children's reading experience…
Theory of Mind and Peer Attachment in Adolescence
A growing body of research on theory of mind (ToM) highlights its significance for childhood social outcomes. Extending the developmental scope of this work, the current study investigated links between advanced ToM abilities and peer attachment in adolescence. Polish adolescents (16 to 18 years old; N = 302; 57.6% girls) completed two advanced ToM measures and reported on their peer attachment. With the effects of age and language controlled, gi…
Sexual Identity & Human Occupation
The dearth of literature within occupational science regarding the relationship between sexual identity and human occupation has been noted. This constituted a gap in knowledge that warranted exploration in a discipline that strives to understand the meaning individuals place on occupations and how occupations enable adaptation. A small‐scale qualitative study was undertaken within Dublin, Ireland to explore the influence of sexual identity on th…
Relations Between False Belief Understanding and Executive Function in Early Childhood
The association between executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) has been hotly debated for 20 years. Competing accounts focus on: task demands, conceptual overlap, or functional ties. Findings from this meta-analytic review of 102 studies (representing 9,994 participants aged 3–6 years) indicate that the moderate association between EF and one key aspect of ToM, false belief understanding (FBU) is: (a) similar for children from different…
Measuring the foundations of school readiness
BACKGROUND: Early work on school readiness focused on academic skills. Recent research highlights the value of also including both children's social and behavioural competencies and family support. AIMS: Reflecting this broader approach, this study aimed to develop a new and brief questionnaire for teachers: The Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI). SAMPLE: The main sample, recruited from the north-west of England, included 1,456 children…
Theory of mind in middle childhood
The vast majority of studies on theory of mind (ToM) have focused on the preschool years. Extending the developmental scope of ToM research presents opportunities to both reassess theoretical accounts of ToM and test its predictive utility. The twin aims of this longitudinal study were to examine developmental relations between ToM, executive function (EF), and teacher-rated social competence in middle childhood. One hundred thirty-seven children…
Family Correlates of False Belief Understanding in Early Childhood
This meta-analysis seeks to integrate findings from 25 years of research on family correlates of young children's false belief understanding (FBU). Using data from 93 studies of 3- to 7-year-old children, we examined the correlations between FBU and four of the most widely studied family factors: parental socioeconomic status, number of siblings, parental mental-state talk, and mind-mindedness. FBU exhibited modest associations with each family v…
Family support and gains in school readiness
BACKGROUND: Traditional measures of school readiness are labour-intensive and do not assess family support. AIMS: The current study used the newly developed Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI: Hughes, Daly, Foley, White and Devine 2015) to examine 6-month longitudinal stability and change in teachers' ratings of young children's school readiness and investigate the role of family support as a predictor of school readiness. SAMPLE: = 3.98…
School readiness in children with special educational needs and disabilities
BACKGROUND: There is an urgent need to accelerate the detection of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). A recent brief questionnaire designed for teachers and nursery staff, the Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI), shows promising psychometric properties (Hughes, Daly, Foley, White, & Devine, . British Journal of Educational Psychology, 85(3), 332-356.), but has yet to be evaluated as a tool for detecting children who may h…
Infant screen exposure links to toddlers' inhibition, but not other EF constructs
Technology is pervasive in homes of families with young children, despite evidence for negative associations between infant exposure to screen‐based media and cognitive development that has led the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to discourage parents from exposing children under the age of 18 months to any kind of screen time (AAP, 2016). Here, we apply a propensity score matching approach to estimate relations between electronic screen‐bas…
Mind what teacher says
This study examined the link between theory of mind (ToM) in middle childhood and teachers’ propensity for mental‐state language and self‐reported conversational‐instruction strategies. Multilevel analyses on 430 Italian children (221 girls, M age = 9.34 years, SD = .63, Range: 7.95–11.43 years) from 27 primary‐school classrooms and their teachers showed that: (i) there were striking between‐classroom differences in children's ToM; (ii) teachers’…
Theory of Mind and Peer Attachment in Adolescence
A growing body of research on theory of mind (ToM) highlights its significance for childhood social outcomes. Extending the developmental scope of this work, the current study investigated links between advanced ToM abilities and peer attachment in adolescence. Polish adolescents (16 to 18 years old; N = 302; 57.6% girls) completed two advanced ToM measures and reported on their peer attachment. With the effects of age and language controlled, gi…
Mind-mindedness in new mothers and fathers
This study examined the development of caregiver mind-mindedness-defined as the propensity to see one's child as an agent with an independent mind-across the first 1,000 days of life. At four time-points (i.e., third trimester of pregnancy, 4, 14, and 24 months postpartum), 384 first-time mothers ( M age = 32.55, SD = 3.63 years) and fathers ( M age = 33.96, SD = 4.40 years) gave 5-minute speech samples about their infant that were coded for mind…
Children in ethnically diverse classrooms and those with cross-ethnic friendships excel at understanding others' minds
This study examined the link between classroom ethnic diversity, cross-ethnic friendships, and children's theory of mind. In total, 730 children in the United Kingdom (54.7% girls, 51.5% White) aged 8 to 13 years completed measures of theory of mind in 2019/2020. Controlling for verbal ability, executive function, peer social preference, and teacher-reported demographic characteristics, greater classroom ethnic diversity provided opportunities fo…
The effect of peers’ theory of mind on children’s own theory of mind development
While there is considerable evidence that children's early ability to understand others' mental states, called "theory of mind," is shaped by family experiences, it remains unclear whether children's social interactions at school influence theory of mind (ToM) beyond early childhood. We tested whether the mean level ("quantity") and/or the diversity ("variety") of peers' ToM influenced children's own ToM. We also examined whether peer effects on …
Developmental links between well-being, self-concept and prosocial behaviour in early primary school
BackgroundWell-being is a key aspect of children's education, yet measurement issues have limited studies in early primary school.AimsThe current 12-month longitudinal study assesses the temporal stability of child- and parent-reported school well-being and examines developmental links with academic self-concept and parent-rated prosocial behaviour.Sample(s)We tracked a sample of 206 children across the transition from the first (T1) to the secon…
Changes in children’s well-being and mental health across the early school years
The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between children's well-being and mental health in the early years of primary school and the developmental association between well-being and mental health and children's early social and academic skills. Two hundred fifty-two children (131 girls, M age = 5.40 years, 80% White) and their caregivers (89.8% mothers) from the United Kingdom participated in a 1-year longitudinal study. Children…
Longitudinal development of theory of mind in adolescence and its associations with fiction reading experience
The high occurrence of social content in children's fiction may provide opportunities for practicing and refining emerging understanding of others' thoughts, feelings, and desires, referred to as "theory of mind" (ToM). The aim of the present study was to test this potential developmental benefit by longitudinally examining ToM development in middle childhood and adolescence, as well as examining associations between children's reading experience…
Links Between Child Executive Function and Adjustment
Cross-site comparisons indicate that East Asian children typically excel on tests of executive function (EF), but interpreting this contrast is made difficult by both the heavy reliance on testing in school settings and by the scarcity of studies that assess across-site measurement invariance. Addressing these gaps, our study included remote home-based assessments of EF for 1002 children (Mage = 5.19 years, SD = 0.51; 49% male) from England, Hong…
Children’s Theory of Mind and Academic Achievement
Children’s theory of mind (ToM) is critical for academic success, yet its associations with reading comprehension and mathematics remain unclear. This pre-registered meta-analysis synthesizes findings from 53 studies, including 12,347 participants aged 2.5 – 17 years. Results revealed a significant overall association between ToM and academic achievement ( r = .32), which: (i) did not differ across domains (i.e., reading, mathematics, general ach…
Less is More
This longitudinal study examines different domains of parenting as independent predictors of gains in children's executive function (EF). Day‐long naturalistic audio recordings of family talk were gathered at Time 1 for 70 children from England (40 girls, M age = 5.41 years, SD = 0.33; 85.7% of caregivers had degree‐level education), alongside remote observations of parent‐child dyads (87.1% mothers) engaging in a 5‐min structured play task, whic…
Developmental psychology (15 works) · Psychology (15 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (9 works) · Cognition (9 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (7 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Theory of mind (6 works) · Longitudinal study (5 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (4 works) · Cognitive development (4 works)