theory of mind - baron-cohen

Question 1

what is the theory of mind?

Answer 1

a social-cognitive skill, involving the ability to think about mental states, including your own and others. includes the ability to recognise that others may differ from your own

Question 2

what are mental states?

Answer 2

• emotions, beliefs, knowledge, etc.

Question 3

what are the TOM stages of development?

Answer 3

• babies: demonstrate imitation, suggesting an understanding that others are ‘like me’
• toddlers: have an understanding of adult intentions when carrying out simple actions
• preschool age: false beliefs - children start to understand that people can believe and act upon things which are not true

Question 4

TOM and autism

Answer 4

• one of the typical characteristics of autistic individuals is that they find social interactions difficult
• could be explained by an inability to understand the mental states of other people
• the inability to predict and adjust to the behaviours of others
• the sally-anne test was used to investigate ToM in autistic children

Question 5

what are the aim and findings of the sally-anne test?

Answer 5

aim: to observe how children with autism perform on the TOM tasks compared to children with downs syndrome as well as neurotypical children
findings: 80% of neurotypical or downs syndrome children were able to answer TOM questions correctly. only 20% of children diagnosed with autism were able to correctly answer the questions