Children's beliefs about authorship

Two studies investigated children's beliefs about texts and their origins in an author's mind. In Study 1, 80 children between 4 and 7 years of age were interviewed during a dialogic story-reading activity to investigate their level of awareness about the author's existence and his or her mental processes. Study 2, involving only 5- and 6-year-olds, tested the hypothesis that guided reflection on fictional realities in a story might facilitate children's understanding that an author exists and that a story is the result of his or her mental activity. Results show that mature conceptions of the mental origins of the text appear around the age of 7 but that structured reflection about the fictional nature of the story may trigger this awareness starting around the age of 5 or 6.