Rural bilingual Roma children and theory of mind competencies

• Language tasks: Yes/No Questions and the Evidentiality task.

The children were tested in two languages: Romani as L1 and Bulgarian as a second language (L2).

1 gr. 3; 6 - 4; 6 years old - 20 children

2 gr. 4; 7-5; 6 years old - 20 children

The testing with the children was conducted individually in a separate room where the researcher and the teacher of the group were present. The testing in Bulgarian was done by the researcher, and the testing in Romani was conducted by a Roma woman, a member of

the community and speaker of the dialect of the children. The Roma woman was trained in advance about how to administer the tests.

Knox's Cube Nonverbal Intelligent Test - The children were also tested also with a non-verbal intelligence test where they had to repeat movements on cubes shown by the researcher. Children with four and more consequent errors were not included in the study evaluation. The children were tested once, and the instructions were given in Romani.

The children attend a kindergarten, where they learn the Bulgarian language, but at home they speak a variety of Bulgarian Romani. They grow up as `successive bilinguals' (Grosjean, 2010).

Results

Theory of Mind Tasks

Unexpected Content task

In this task the children in the study are shown a box of chocolates. The child does not know what the box contains. The researcher asks the child what (s) he thinks is in the box and usually the children answer: «chocolates». Then the box is opened, the child sees that the box contains a pen. The box is closed by the researcher and then the child is asked: «What did you think first when you saw the box?» The next question: «What would your friend think is in the box if (s) he sees it?»

The first comparison in performing this task is between the age groups and the results are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Impact of the factor Age on the dependent variable Unexpected Content Task Scores

As can be seen from Figure 1, the older children in the study are much better than the younger children; the statistical differences are significant (p>.01): F (1.46) = 5.8793; p =.0193. The younger children between 3 and 4 years old do not remember that at the beginning when they first saw the box their answer was that the box contained chocolates. They answered that they said when they first saw the box, they thought there was a pen inside. The older children after the age of 4; 0 years or 4; i years remembered the content as they thought before opening the box and the difference after closing it.

In turning to to the False-belief task, the results are given in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Impact of interaction between the factors Age and Unexpected Content TOM Question Task on dependent variable Unexpected Content Task Scores Unexpected Content TOM Question Task

As we can see from Figure i, the children from both age groups answer the TOM question - False-belief task almost in the same way. The older children answered the question correctly but the statistical analyses between the two groups show no significant differences F (1.46) =.44064; p =.51013.

The children were tested in two languages, Romani as L1 and their second language Bulgarian, the official language of the country. The results are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Impact of interaction between the factors Age and Language on dependent variable Unexpected Content Task Scores

Figure 4. Impact of the factors Language on dependent variable Unseen Displacement Task Scores

As evident from Figure 4, the children are better in performing the task in Bulgarian, their L2. The age of the children does not show any statistically significant difference. However, the language utilized in performing the test is statistically significant: F (1.46) =7.8559; p =.00739; p> 001.

Most of the children answer correctly to the False-belief tasks and this is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Impact the factor Unseen Displacement TOM Question Task on dependent variable Unseen Displacement Task Scores

bilingual roma children

Figure 3 shows that the children perform this test in both languages at the same level. The statistical differences between the two languages are not significant, although the children 4; 7-5; 6 years old perform the test slightly better: F (1.46) =.16331; p =.68800.

Unseen Displacement Task

The second Theory of mind task is Unseen Displacement. The researcher shows the child two actors, a puppet dog and cat, who are friends. They have a ball. At the beginning the two actors put the ball in a basket acting together. One of them then leaves the scene, and the other who remains puts the ball in a second basket next to the first one. Then the first actor returns to the scene and the child is asked by the researcher: where is s/he going to look for the ball? The question is connected with the ability of the children to place themselves in the position of the other person and to take his/her perspective.

The results are given in the following figures. Figure 4 shows the impact of the factor language.

Most of the children from both groups answered the False-belief task correctly and the age did not have a statistically significant impact, which means that both groups performed the test equally well. However, the differences between the children who answered correctly or incorrectly are statistically significant: F (1.46) = 39.631; p =.00000.

If we look at the interaction between age as a factor and how the children gave an answer to the False-belief question, we see results in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Impact of interaction between the factors Age and Unseen Displacement TOM Question Task on dependent variable Unseen Displacement Task Scores

From Figure 6 it is clear that the younger children have far more errors answering the False-belief question, and the older children have a higher percentage of correct answers. The differences between the age groups are not statistically significant F (1.46) = 2.0363, p =.16033.

Turning to performance of the test by age groups and languages, results are given in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Impact of interaction between the factors Age and Language on dependent variable Unseen Displacement Task Scores

Figure 7 shows clearly that both groups of children perform the test in both languages almost equally well. The group of children 4; 7-5; 6 years old are better than those 3; 6-4; 6 years old, but the differences are not statistically significant. There are slight differences in the performance of the test in Bulgarian language, but those differences are not significant.

To summarize the performance of both TOM tasks, the older children understand the tasks better and a high number of them have correct answers. The children perform equally well on the tests in both languages. The differences between Romani as a home language and Bulgarian as a second language are not significant.

Let us now turn to how the children performed the language tasks.

Language Task Evidentiality

The children are given five pairs of stories. The stories are told by two actors - a cat and a dog puppet. The stories are in past tense and in an evidentiality form (i.e., non-witnessed). The past tense story is told by the cat and the story in evidentiality form is told by the dog. Then the next time they are switched - past tense tale told by the dog, evidentiality tale by the cat, - so as to avoid the association of one protagonist with one form of the story. The question put to the child is: Who saw what happened in the story?

Here are the results.

Figure 8. Impact of the factor Age on dependent variable Evidentiality Task Scores

Figure 9. Impact of interaction between the factors Age and Language on dependent variable Evidentiality Task Scores Language

Figure 9 shows that the older children performed the task better than the younger children and although there are some slight differences in the performance of the task in Romani, the performance of the task in Bulgarian language is on the same level by both groups. The differences are not statistically significant F (1.46) = 1.5585, p =.21820.

Yes/No Questions

The children were shown eight pictures and for each picture was asked a wh - question with the verb «say». Half of the questions were with positive answers and the other half with negative answers.

The results of the test are given in the following figure.

Figure 10. Impact of interaction between the factors Age and Language on dependent variable Yes/No Question Task Scores

Figure 10 shows that there are no age and no language differences in the performance of this task. The task is equally well performed by both age groups and in both languages, Romani and Bulgarian. The differences are not statistically significant F (1.46) = 1.7173, p =.19655.

In regard to a correlation between the language tasks and Theory of Mind tasks, the results are presented in Table 1 (see Appendix).

From Table 1 is clear that there are corelations between the two language tasks - Evidentiality and Yes/No Questions - and the correlation is statistically significant (p <.05000). The corelations are in both languages, Romani and Bulgarian (.340526). However, there is no correlation between the language task and the Theory of Mind tasks.

Let us see how the children performed the Knox Intelligent Test, with results shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Impact of the factor Age on Knox's Cube Nonverbal Intelligent Test Scores

Figure 11 shows that the older children performed this test much better than the younger children. The differences between the two groups are statistically significant F (1.23) = 28.900, p=.00002. As children grow older, their intelligence improves as well.

The correlations of all 5 variables are shown in Table 2 (see Appendix).

From Table 2 it is clear that there is a corelation between the variables Evidentiality Task Scores and Yes/No Question Task Scores (0,4064); Evidentiality Task Scores and Knox's Cube Nonverbal Intelligence Test Scores (0,3969); and between the Yes/No Question Task Scores and Knox's Cube Nonverbal Intelligence Test Scores (0,5073). All correlations are only for the Romani language, not for Bulgarian.

Discussion and Conclusions

The study shows the following tendencies: the older children comprehend and perform the Theory of Mind tasks better in both languages. They also show better results performing the language tasks in both languages, Romani and Bulgarian. However, performing the intelligence task, the children are much better in their mother tongue. There is not any statistically significant corelation between the Theory of Mind task and the language tasks. It seems that the children develop the

Grosjean (2010) writes about the importance of the family support for the language development of bilingual children. The Roma families fully support the children with language because they use a rich range of oral folkloristic genres, such as singing, fairy tales, lullabies, language games, etc. (Kyuchukov, 2021). Another important factor for the language development of bilingual children noted by Grosjean (2010) is the loving environment. In the small village where the Roma children live, they are surrounded with love in the extended family and in the community, because in the community the people know each other, and it is normal for the neighbours to communicate with children, to play with them, to sing for them. On the other official side of education, the atmosphere in the kindergarten is also very friendly and loving. In small villages the Bulgarians and Roma know each other, and they live in a respectful and friendly relationship. That provides the Roma children the possibility to have access to Bulgarian language from an early age. These are not the Roma communities in Slovakia which Spotakova (2011) has described: living in segregated and isolated settlements, in villages with poor even inhumane living conditions - devoid of proper electricity, water supplies, and basic hygiene, while facing racism and humiliation from the majority society day in day out.

Although the study is limited (with only 40 children) and did not show a correlation between the Theory of Mind tasks and language tasks, the results from the study are very important for the following reasons:

1. Like any other normally developing children around the world, the Roma bilingual children acquire the Theory of Mind competencies after reaching the age of 4. They perform the False-belief tasks in both languages (Romani and Bulgarian) at an equal level.

2. The children show high results in comprehension and production of the language tasks (Evidentiality and Yes/No Questions) in both languages.

3. The non-verbal intelligence test shows a correlation with the language tasks in the L1 of the children, Romani.

This once more confirms the thesis of Spotakova (2011) that testing of Roma children should be done with culturally appropriate tests and in their mother tongue. And as Templer (2016, 152-153) stresses, in order for the minority children to be successful in their education they need dual bilingual and multicultural education, and to build literacy competencies in the L1 home language as well as the official school language, a bilingual literacy as «emergent bilinguals» grounded on the conception of the `Students' Right to Their Own Language' (Mother Tongue First!) as a basic egalitarian discursive and educational right, als o embodied in `MT-based MLE' - Mother-tongue based multilingual education (Malone, 2007; see also Smitherman, 1995). In this model, pupils are taught to read first in their home language, and perhaps also learn other subjects up to grade 5 or 6 in their L1, to develop solid literacy skills in the language they know best. Only then will the Roma children not be in a situation such as Spotakova (2011) describes. Roma children across Europe suffer in particular from neglect of learning literacy in their native Romanes (Kyuchukov, 2006), a form of «linguicism» in the sense of Skutnabb - Kangas (2008; 2015), a language-centered form of racism.

Doing research among Roma communities is very important also to know the Roma culture in order to avoid culturally inappropriate tests or task and to understand better the behaviour and reactions of tested Roma children. A young non-Roma psychologist was doing some psychological research with kindergarten Roma children in Slovakia, without knowing anything about the culture, religion, beliefs and values in their community and life world. A Roma child was given a non-verbal test where one of 4 pictures presented does not fit in with the other three: the child must identify and remove it. A Roma girl was shown 3 pictures of fruits and a picture of bread, and the child was asked by the researcher: What one doesn't fit with the other three? The child looked at the pictures but did not react. When the researcher asked her why she doesn't remove the picture which doesn't fit with the other three, the child answered «I can't throw it out. It's a bread. It's a sin if I throw it away».

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Appendix

Table 1. Correlation matrix for 4 variables on the basis of all data - Romani and Bulgarian Language

Table 2. Correlation matrix for 5 variables on the basis of the data of Romani language only Correlations (UnexpEvid.sta)

Marked correlations are significant at p <, 05000 N=25 (Casewise deletion of missing data)

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