• 1. Introduction: Why Language Matters ; 2. Language pathways into the community of minds ; 3. Communication, relationships, and individual differences in children's understanding of mind ; 4. Conversation, pretence and theory of mind ; 5. Talking about "new" information: the given/new distinction and children's developing theory of mind ; 6. The developmental origins of meaning for mental terms ; 7. Language promotes structural alignment in the acquisition of mentalistic concepts ; 8. Language and the development of cognitive flexibility: Implications for theory of mind ; 9. Representational development and false-belief understanding ; 10. Can language acquisition give children a point of view? ; 11. What does "that" have to do with point of view? Conflicting desires and "want" in German ; 12. Linguistic communication and social understanding ; 13. The role of language in theory-of-mind development: What deaf children tell us ; 14. How language facilitates the acquisition of false-belief understanding in children with autism ; 15. Genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in language and theory of mind: Common or distinct?

Why language matters for theory of mind offers all the inspiration and a good deal of the background necessary for child language researchers to start contributing to ToM-language debate.