A new study of preschool children in Türkiye has found that a child’s belief in their own abilities may be more closely linked to their willingness to interact with peers with special educational needs than their ability to understand another person’s point of view. The findings, published in Current Psychology, challenge a familiar assumption in developmental psychology: that perspective-taking—the capacity to recognize that another person may think, feel, or perceive the world differently—is the primary psychological engine behind inclusive behavior. Instead, the research suggests that young children’s perceived capabilities may play a more immediate role in shaping whether they intend to help, play with, communicate with, or include peers with disabilities.
The study involved 193 children between four and six years old attending early childhood education centres in Bayburt, Türkiye. Researchers used a quantitative, cross-sectional design, meaning that the children’s abilities, self-perceptions, experiences, and behavioral intentions were measured during the same period rather than tracked over time. Each child participated individually in two meetings, with data collection taking approximately 18 minutes per session. The researchers administered a Child Information Form, a Perceived Capabilities Scale, a Behavioral Intentions Scale, and a Child Perspective-Taking Test. Together, these instruments were designed to examine not only what children understood about other people’s experiences, but also how capable they believed themselves to be and how they expected to behave toward peers with special educational needs.
Perspective-taking is a complex developmental ability that includes several related processes. A child may need to understand that another person can have knowledge different from their own, recognize another person’s visual perspective, interpret emotional states, or infer beliefs and intentions. These skills are connected to theory of mind, the broader capacity to understand that other people possess independent thoughts, feelings, desires, and beliefs. By the preschool years, children typically begin to succeed on increasingly sophisticated perspective-taking tasks, including problems involving hidden information and false beliefs. However, being able to identify what another person may think does not automatically guarantee that a child will choose to act inclusively. Understanding another child’s experience and feeling confident enough to approach, assist, or cooperate with that child may involve partly different psychological systems.
The results showed small but statistically significant positive relationships between children’s perceived capabilities and their behavioral intentions across three peer conditions. The correlations ranged from r = .283 to .289, with probability values below .01. In practical terms, children who viewed themselves as more capable also tended to report more positive intentions toward peers with physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, or other special educational needs. The associations were modest, which is important: perceived capability was not a complete explanation for children’s attitudes or intended behavior. Yet the consistency of the pattern across all three conditions suggests that self-perception may be a meaningful factor in early inclusion. A child who believes they can communicate, solve problems, cooperate, or manage unfamiliar social situations may be more likely to imagine successful interactions with a peer who has additional educational needs.
Some perspective-taking components were also associated with behavioral intentions in the initial, two-variable analyses. These relationships were small, indicating that children with stronger performance on selected perspective-taking tasks tended to show somewhat more favorable intentions toward peers with special educational needs. However, the pattern changed when the researchers entered multiple variables into regression models. After perceived capabilities and other relevant factors were considered simultaneously, none of the perspective-taking components remained a statistically significant predictor of behavioral intentions. Perceived capabilities were the only variables that consistently retained a significant association, with standardized beta coefficients between .268 and .289 and probability values below .001. The models explained between 9.3% and 10.6% of the variance in behavioral intentions, while adjusted values ranged from 7.4% to 8.7%.
These figures do not mean that perspective-taking is unimportant. Rather, they indicate that its influence may not be direct, strong enough to detect in this sample, or easily separated from other developmental abilities. Perspective-taking can support empathy and social understanding, but inclusive behavior also depends on confidence, communication skills, previous contact, classroom expectations, emotional regulation, and the responses modeled by adults. A preschool child may understand that a peer is frustrated or sees a situation differently, yet still hesitate to initiate contact if the child feels socially uncertain. Conversely, a child who feels competent and supported may be more prepared to approach a peer, even when their understanding of that peer’s internal perspective is still developing. The study therefore points toward a layered model of inclusion in which cognitive understanding and perceived personal competence operate together rather than as interchangeable traits.
The researchers also explored whether children’s reported experience with peers with special educational needs was related to their scores. These exploratory comparisons identified selective differences in perspective-taking according to whether children were reported to have had experience with peers with special educational needs. The authors caution, however, that this result should not be treated as proof that contact causes stronger perspective-taking. Experience was measured in a simple yes-or-no format, providing no information about how often the contact occurred, whether it was positive, whether the children played together, or whether adults supported the interaction. In addition, the groups were highly unequal in size. These limitations make it difficult to determine whether direct contact itself improved children’s skills, whether children with stronger social abilities were more likely to have such contact, or whether both outcomes were influenced by classroom and family environments.
The study found one gender-related difference: girls reported slightly higher behavioral intentions toward peers with physical disabilities than boys, reflected in a statistical result of t = 2.318 and p = .022. No significant age-related differences were observed among the four-, five-, and six-year-olds. The absence of clear age effects may reflect the relatively narrow age range, the cross-sectional design, or the possibility that children’s social attitudes do not develop in a simple, linear progression during these years. Preschool classrooms can contain large differences in language, emotional maturity, social experience, and exposure to disability, even among children of the same age. The gender difference, meanwhile, was described as slight and should not be interpreted as evidence that girls are inherently more inclusive. Social expectations, communication patterns, adult responses, and opportunities for cooperative play may all contribute to differences observed between groups.
The findings have direct implications for early childhood education. Inclusion programs often focus on information, disability awareness, empathy activities, stories, and guided discussions about how other people feel. The new evidence suggests that these approaches may be strengthened by activities that also build children’s sense of competence. Teachers could create structured opportunities for children to solve problems together, request and offer help, take turns leading games, communicate through multiple methods, and experience successful cooperation. Such activities may be especially valuable when they are designed so that every child contributes meaningfully rather than positioning children with disabilities only as recipients of assistance. From the perspective of the theory of planned behavior, behavioral intentions are shaped by attitudes, perceived social expectations, and perceived behavioral control—the belief that one can successfully perform a behavior. The study’s results are consistent with the idea that perceived control may be particularly important when children are considering unfamiliar social interactions.
The researchers emphasize that the results should be interpreted within the study’s limitations. The sample was selected through convenience sampling from early childhood education centres in one Turkish province, so the findings cannot automatically be generalized to all preschool children or cultural contexts. The cross-sectional design identifies associations but cannot establish cause and effect. The measures also focused on perceived intentions rather than observing children’s actual behavior in classrooms or playgrounds. Young children may give socially desirable answers, especially when responding to adults about helping or playing with peers. In addition, the privacy protections surrounding the participants meant that the raw and processed data could not be shared. Future studies could use larger and more diverse samples, repeated measurements over several years, classroom observations, peer nominations, and detailed assessments of contact quality. Intervention studies could also test whether improving perceived capabilities produces measurable changes in real-world inclusive behavior.
Taken together, the research offers a precise but potentially important shift in how scientists and educators understand inclusion during the preschool years. Perspective-taking remains a valuable foundation for social understanding, but knowing what another person may feel or believe is only one step toward acting inclusively. Children may also need to believe that they have the skills and confidence to enter the interaction successfully. The strongest message is therefore not that self-perception replaces empathy, but that inclusion may be more likely when empathy is paired with competence. In classrooms seeking to support children with special educational needs, teaching children to understand difference may be most effective when it is accompanied by repeated, supported experiences showing them that cooperation is possible—and that they are capable of making it happen.
Subject of Research: Preschool children’s perspective-taking skills, perceived capabilities, and behavioral intentions toward peers with special educational needs
Article Title: Associations between preschool children’s perspective-taking skills and their perceived abilities and behavioral intentions toward peers with special educational needs
Article References: Ari-Arat, C., & Tutkun, C. (2026). “Associations between preschool children’s perspective-taking skills and their perceived abilities and behavioral intentions toward peers with special educational needs.” Current Psychology, 45, Article 1409.
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-026-09997-4
Keywords: Early childhood; perceived capabilities; behavioral intentions; perspective-taking; special educational needs; attitude; inclusive education; peer relationships
