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    Theory of Mind Autism

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    Leticia Jurado
    Theory of mind refers to the ability to understand the desires, intentions and beliefs of others. It typically develops in children between ages 3 to 5. Theory of mind is impaired in people with autism. One of the earliest tests is the false belief test, where children are asked where another person will search for a ball after it has been moved, and children with autism are unable to consider the false belief. Several studies have found biological and language-based reasons for the impaired theory of mind in autism.

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    Theory of Mind Autism

    Uploaded by

    Leticia Jurado
    44 views2 pages
    Theory of mind refers to the ability to understand the desires, intentions and beliefs of others. It typically develops in children between ages 3 to 5. Theory of mind is impaired in people with autism. One of the earliest tests is the false belief test, where children are asked where another person will search for a ball after it has been moved, and children with autism are unable to consider the false belief. Several studies have found biological and language-based reasons for the impaired theory of mind in autism.

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    Theory of mind refers to the ability to understand the desires, intentions and beliefs of others. It typically develops in children between ages 3 to 5. Theory of mind is impaired in people with autism. One of the earliest tests is the false belief test, where children are asked where another person will search for a ball after it has been moved, and children with autism are unable to consider the false belief. Several studies have found biological and language-based reasons for the impaired theory of mind in autism.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    44 views2 pages

    Theory of Mind Autism

    Uploaded by

    Leticia Jurado
    Theory of mind refers to the ability to understand the desires, intentions and beliefs of others. It typically develops in children between ages 3 to 5. Theory of mind is impaired in people with autism. One of the earliest tests is the false belief test, where children are asked where another person will search for a ball after it has been moved, and children with autism are unable to consider the false belief. Several studies have found biological and language-based reasons for the impaired theory of mind in autism.

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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    THEORY OF MIND

    Theory of mind refers to the ability to understand the desires, intentions and
    beliefs of others, and is a skill that develops between 3 and 5 years of age in
    typically developing children. This is test revision.

    Relevance to autism:

    Theory of mind is impaired in people with autism. One of the earliest tests for
    theory of mind is the false-belief test developed by Simon Baron-Cohen and
    Uta Frith1. In the classic version of the test, a little girl named Sally puts a ball
    into a basket and goes out for a walk. While she is away, another little girl
    named Anne takes the ball out of the basket and puts it into a box. When Sally
    comes back, she wants to play with the ball. Where, the children are asked, will
    Sally look for the ball? ‘In the box,’ children with autism answer, unable to
    imagine that Sally might be operating under a false belief.
    In 1985, Baron-Cohen, Frith and Alan Leslie reported that children with autism
    systematically fail the false-belief test. Children with Down syndrome pass the
    test, despite having lower intelligence quotients than those with autism2. The
    researchers concluded that autism leads to a delay in the development of
    theory of mind, and that people with autism have difficulty understanding the
    mental states of others.
    However, researchers stress that it is important to distinguish false-belief
    tasks, which rely on language, from full-fledged theory of mind, which is more
    deeply impaired in people with autism.
    Some children and adults with autism can pass false-belief tests, for example.
    But they show more difficulty with theory of mind tasks that do not allow them
    to reason through a problem. For example, a 2011 study reported that highly
    intelligent young adults with autism express tend not to weigh intention and
    outcome when engaged in moral reasoning3.
    A 2009 eye tracking study showed that adults with Asperger
    syndrome seem to compute theory of mind differently than healthy people
    do4.
    Other studies have pointed to a biological basis for impaired theory of mind in
    people with autism5 6. Finally, much research suggests that different aspects of
    ,

    language are important for developing theory of mind7. These include


    communication in social contexts, such as between mother and child or in peer
    interactions, knowledge of words and concepts referring to mental states and
    complex grammar, especially sentence structures used to express mental states.

    REFERENCES:

    1. Baron-Cohen S. et al. Cognition 21, 37-46 (1985) PubMed


    2. Tager-Flusberg H. Child Dev. 63, 161-172 (1992) PubMed
    3. Moran J. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, 2688-2692 (2011) PubMed
    4. Senju A. et al. Science 325, 883-885 (2009) PubMed
    5. Saxe R. and N. Kanwisher Neuroimage 19, 1835-1842 (2003) PubMed
    6. Kana R.K. et al. Soc. Neurosci. 4, 135-152 (2009) PubMed
    7. Astington J. and J. Baird (Eds.) Why language matters for theory of
    mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2005)

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