Main TOM

• • A way to understand ASD by looking at how people with it struggle to see things from other people's points of view
• What is a theory of mind?

  • We need to understand that others have their own unique ways of seeing the world in their heads
  • Baron-Cohen (1995) - people with ASD have trouble with guessing what's going on in people's minds + their actions
  • Struggle to understand others thoughts and feelings
• Precursors to a theory of mind

  • Having a good "theory of mind" starts developing early in life
  • One crucial ability is "joint attention" where an adult directs a child's focus to something by pointing or using eye contact. To do this, a child needs to grasp what the adult wants - shows they recognise that others have their own thoughts + goals
  • Scaife + Bruner (1975) found that typically children can do this by 14 months. But in children with ASD, these skills might be delayed or not work as well
• Mental versus physical

  • Baron-Cohen argues there are two foundations of TOM: the ability to distinguish between physical + mental things + the ability to distinguish between appearances + reality
  • Mental vs physical = a fundamental cornerstone of our TOM
  • A test for distinction = involves a child listening to stories in which one character is having a mental experience (eg - thinking about a dog) + the second is having a physical experience (eg - holding a dog)
• Mental versus physical 2

  • The experimenter would then ask questions about what the characters could do?
  • For example, which character can stroke a dog?
  • Wellman + Estes (1986) found 3-4 years can easily answer these Qs. However children with ASD, have been found to have been significantly impaired at making such judgements (Baron-cohen 1989)
• Appearances versus reality

  • Most children around 4 years old can understand that things might not be exactly what they look like (Flawell et al 1986)
  • For example, they know that even if a bath bomb looks like a cake, it's still just a bath bomb that dissolves in the bath
  • BUT children with ASD may struggle with this understanding (Baron-Cohen 1989)
• Sally-Anne test

  • Baron-Cohen, Leslie + Frith (1985) did a test called the Sally-Anne test to see if kids understand that others can have false beliefs + act on them
  • They had three groups of children: ASD, down syndrome (lower IQ, but normal social skills) + neurotypical children
• Sally-Anne test 2

  • Told a story - Sally puts a marble in the basket + Anne moves the marble to another box whilst Sally is away. The children are asked where Sally will look for her marble
  • The right answer is "in the basket" showing the child knows is true
  • The results showed 85% of neurotypical kids + 86% of kids with down syndrome answered correctly, BUT only 20% of kids with ASD got it right
  • Children with ASD struggle with tasks that require TOM. It's not due to their IQ as children with intellectual disabilities did better on the test