For children, sarcastic language can be difficult to understand. They generally begin to recognize sarcasm between ages 6 and 8, especially familiar sarcastic praise such as "Thanks a lot!" and "Nice going!"
However, some children take much longer to begin to understand sarcasm, with detection improving even through adolescence.
In a new study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, Professor Penny Pexman from University of Calgary, Canada, and colleagues investigated whether differences in the ability of children to empathize with others might help to explain why.
The researchers looked at empathy specifically because they thought that in order to understand sarcasm children must be able to adopt the perspective of the speaker – to understand the speaker's attitude and emotions.
The study involved 31 children between 8 and 9 years old in a task that required them to recognize sarcasm.
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