Everyday social and conversation applications of theory-of-mind understanding by children with autism-spectrum disorders or typical development

Abstract

Children with autism-spectrum disorders (ASD) often fail laboratory false-belief tests of theory of mind (ToM). Yet how this impacts on their everyday social behavior is less clear, partly owing to uncertainty over which specific everyday conversational and social skills require ToM understanding. A new caregiver-report scale of these everyday applications of ToM was developed and validated in two studies. Study 1 obtained parent ratings of 339 children (85 with autism; 230 with Asperger's; 24 typically-developing) on the new scale and results revealed (a) that the scale had good psychometric properties and (b) that children with ASD had significantly more everyday mindreading difficulties than typical developers. In Study 2, we directly tested links between laboratory ToM and everyday mindreading using teacher ratings on the new scale. The sample of 25 children included 15 with autism and 10 typical developers aged 5-12 years. Children in both groups who passed laboratory ToM tests had fewer everyday mindreading difficulties than those of the same diagnosis who failed. Yet, intriguingly, autistic ToM-passers still had more problems with everyday mindreading than younger typically-developing ToM-failers. The possible roles of family conversation and peer interaction, along with ToM, in everyday social functioning were considered.

Rethinking theory of mind in high‐functioning autism spectrum disorder

“…This may indicate that children and adolescents with HFASD rely more heavily on their general reasoning abilities than TD peers do to solve advanced ToM tasks. Hence, children with HFASD may use nonsocial heuristics and general logic to understand others' intentions and desires (Peterson et al, 2009). In typical development, children's social understanding is embedded in their experience of social interactions (Carpendale & Lewis, 2004).…”

Children with autism spectrum disorder are skilled at reading emotion body language

“…Overall bodily configuration can be viewed at a ''safer'' interpersonal distance than faces and with less risk that the person being watched will react or expect social reciprocity. Thus, in everyday life, even children with ASD who resist eye contact and fail to pick up on facial emotion cues in ordinary conversation (e.g., Peterson, Garnett, Kelly, & Attwood, 2009) might nevertheless notice some of the emotions that people's body postures convey. Over time and exposure, this could lead to selectively greater emotion recognition skill in the bodily domain than in the facial domain for such children.…”

Brief Report: Preliminary Evaluation of the Theory of Mind Inventory and its Relationship to Measures of Social Skills

“…Besides the encouraging evidence surrounding its reliability and validity, measurement features found in the PCToMM-E have been described as advantageous for several reasons (see Peterson et al 2009;Wellman and Liu 2004). First, it is used to gain estimates of ToM in typical (ages 2-12) and ASD samples (ages 2-12) across verbal abilities.…”