title: Assessing social cognition: age-related changes in moral reasoning in childhood and adolescence.
abstract: There is increasing recognition that socio-cognitive skills, such as moral reasoning (MR), are affected in a wide range of developmental and neuropsychological conditions. However, the lack of appropriate measures available to neuropsychologists poses a challenge for the direct assessment of these skills. This study sought to explore age-related changes in MR using an innovative visual tool and examine the developmental sensitivity of the task.
  
  
  
  To address some of the methodological limitations of traditional measures of MR, a novel, visual task, the Socio-Moral Reasoning Aptitude Level (So-Moral), was used to evaluate MR in 216 healthy participants aged 6-20 years.
  
  
  
  The findings show a linear increase in MR from childhood to late adolescence with significant group differences between childhood (6-8 years) and preadolescence (9-11 years), and between early adolescence (12-14 years) and middle adolescence (15-17 years).
  
  
  
  Interpreted in light of current brain development research, the results highlight age-related changes in MR that offer insight into typical MR development and opportunities for comparisons with clinical populations. The findings also provide evidence of the potential of the So-Moral as a developmentally appropriate measure of MR throughout childhood and adolescence.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Montreal , Montreal , Canada.|b Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Center , Montreal , Canada.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Chiasson
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Montreal , Montreal , Canada.|b Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Center , Montreal , Canada.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vera-Estay
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Montreal , Montreal , Canada.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lalonde
authors.affiliation: c Cuyahoga County Court Psychiatric Clinic , Cleveland , OH , USA.|d Department of Psychology , Cleveland State University , Cleveland , OH , USA.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Dooley
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Montreal , Montreal , Canada.|b Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Center , Montreal , Canada.
authors.forename: M H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Beauchamp
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D041923:Adolescent Development; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001921:Brain / Q000254:growth & development; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D003071:Cognition; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D013850:Thinking; D014888:Wechsler Scales; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Moral reasoning; age-related changes; developmental sensitivity; neuropsychological assessment; social cognition