Individual differences in children's conceptual strategies at 3 years of age were predicted by aspects of children's behavior and language at 13 and 24 months. Production of pointing gestures at 13 months and nouns and attributive adjectives at 24 months were positively associated with the use of a taxonomic matching strategy at 3 years of age.…

Four studies examined preschoolers' use of the cue of action initiation to infer another's desired goal. Found that differences in action initiation play an increasingly important role in 3-year-olds' mentalistic explanations of action, and that this development may be related to other critical changes occurring in their developing theory of mind.…