L9 Neurodiverse Development

• What are false beliefs?

  When a person has a mental state of presumed truth that turns out to be incorrect.
• Theory of mind = the understanding that human behaviour is guided by beliefs that may of may not be true
• • Different mental representations in children: three year olds are egocentric and assume that everybody has the same knowledge state as they themselves have in the present moment, even their past selves. At five years old they can think from different perspectives.
  • Alternative explanation: children have the ‘curse of knowledge’ and are unable to ignore the current true state of the world.
• Autism: mind blindness

  Characterised by:

  1. Abnormalities in verbal and nonverbal communication
  2. Repetitive or stereotyped activities
  3. Profound difficulties in reciprocal social interaction

  • Baron-Cohen calls this lack of social competence ‘mindblindness’
  • Baron-Cohen argues autism is caused by an impaired theory of mind. They may not understand that other people can have false beliefs, belief-based emotions, or self-conscious emotions. They do not engage in normal joint attention or point declaratively.
• Domain specificity = a concept in cognitive science that suggests that some cognitive functions are solely responsible for individual functions and not multiple ones.

  Examples: language, visuospatial ability, executive functioning
• • Developmental language disorder (DLD) = children likely to have language problems enduring into middle childhood and beyond, with a significant impact on everyday social interactions or educational progress.
• Sally Ann task - autistic children find this difficult. Explanation: they do not have theory of mind
• • Diffusion chain study: in a mixed group of neurotypical and neurodivergent people, they were worse at remembering a story than just neurotypical or just neurodivergent suggesting there is misunderstandings between.
  • The neurodiversity agenda challenges a 'them and us' mindset.