The understanding of hidden emotions—situations in which individuals deliberately express an emotion different from what they genuinely feel—is a key skill in theory of mind (ToM) development. This ability allows children to reason about discrepancies between internal emotional states and external expressions and is closely tied to linguistic development, particularly vocabulary related to mental states, which supports complex emotional reasoning. Children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH), especially those born to hearing non-signing families and raised in oral language environments, may face challenges in early language exposure. This can impact the development of social and emotional skills, including the ability to understand hidden emotions. This study compares the understanding of hidden emotions in hearing children (n = 59) and DHH children (n = 44) aged 7–12 years. All children were educated in spoken language environments; none of the DHH participants had native exposure to sign language. Participants completed a hidden emotions task involving illustrated stories where a character showed a certain emotion in front of two observers, only one of whom was aware of the character’s true emotional state. The task assessed children’s understanding of the character’s emotional state as well as their ability to reason about the impact of hiding emotions on the beliefs of the observers. The results showed that the hearing children outperformed their DHH peers in understanding hidden emotions. This difference was not attributed to hearing status per se but to language use. Specifically, children’s spontaneous use of cognitive verbs (e.g., think or know) in their explanations predicted task performance across the groups, emphasizing the role of mental state language in emotional reasoning. These findings underscore the importance of early and accessible language exposure in supporting the emotional and social cognitive development of DHH children.

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This study examines the early development of receptive and productive vocabulary in a minority language (Catalan) among children aged 10 to 18 months growing up in a bilingual social context (Catalan-Spanish). The study investigates whether a lower degree of exposure to Spanish favors greater development in Catalan and explores how age influences this development. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 463 children aged 10 to 18 months participated in the study. They were distributed into three groups based on their linguistic context (Monolinguals, Social Bilinguals, and Home Bilinguals). Their receptive and productive vocabulary was measured using the Catalan adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates CDI inventory (8–18 months version). Data and analysis: The data were analyzed using SPSS to examine the effects of linguistic context on children’s receptive and productive vocabulary, with developmental differences across age groups assessed through multivariate analysis (MANOVA), followed by univariate ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD tests. The results about exposure levels show that Catalan children from a bilingual social context have a larger vocabulary than their peers, with statistically significant differences observed only in receptive vocabulary. Concerning the influence of age, we found that the linguistic context affects only receptive vocabulary in the oldest group (16–18 months). Findings/conclusions: The findings suggest that social bilingualism provides more varied and enriched linguistic input compared with other linguistic contexts, thereby fostering receptive vocabulary development. Originality: Unlike most bilingual research focusing on production, this study explores both receptive and productive vocabulary in very young children (10–18 months). In addition, it examines how different linguistic exposure contexts influence language development, addressing a gap in studies on early bilingual acquisition. Significance/implications: The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to factors such as overall vocabulary assessment, typological similarity between the languages, and the presence of cognate words. These results underscore the potential benefits for both assessment and educational intervention in Catalan-Spanish bilingual children.

Visual perspective taking (VPT) depends on the balance between automatic and controlled processes when representing others’ perspectives. Using a foreign language has been shown to shift processing toward more deliberate responses, yet it remains unclear whether such shifts influence perspective taking itself. This study tested whether native versus foreign language use modulates VPT performance.Two experiments were conducted using a VPT task adapted from the Director Task, including Level‑1 (what others see) and Level‑2 (how they see it) judgments, as well as Self and Other perspectives. Experiment 1 tested adults, whereas Experiment 2 examined children aged 8–12 years.Across both age groups, performing the task in a foreign language was associated with slower responses. In adults, foreign language use also improved accuracy, yielding a clear speed–accuracy trade-off consistent with increased controlled processing. In children, accuracy did not differ significantly between language conditions, although a tendency toward higher accuracy in the foreign language condition was observed. Foreign language effects did not differ between VPT levels in adults, whereas in children a dissociation emerged, with higher accuracy but longer reaction times in Level‑2 than in Level‑1 trials.These findings indicate that foreign language processing modulates VPT by shifting the balance between automatic and controlled processes, with effects varying across development and task demands.