theory of mind explaination of autism

Question 1

what type of explanation is theory of mind for autism

Answer 1

cognitive/psychological explanation
non-biological

Question 2

when should theory of mind develop

Answer 2

2-4 years old

Question 3

what does a cognitive deficit mean in this context

Answer 3

autistic child has a lack of theory of mind

Question 4

what is theory of mind

Answer 4

the ability to see the world from perspective of others (putting yourself in someone’s else’s shoes)

Question 5

how is theory of mind impaired in an autistic person

Answer 5

autistic people struggle with the ability to decentre so they struggle to know that your view is not the same as others and people can’t ’mind read’ their thoughts

Question 6

what communication do autistic people struggle with

Answer 6

non verbal like facial expressions and body language

Question 7

according to theory of mind people with autism are what

Answer 7

high systemisers

Question 8

what does it mean for an autistic person to be a high systemiser

Answer 8

they use rules to organize internal and external events

Question 9

what characteristic of autism can theory of mind explain

Answer 9

-difficulties understanding others emotions explains socialization problems
-don’t follow eye gaze of others so learn language slower
-delayed speech lack of TOM means they will assume everyone can read your mind so communication is not seen as necessary
-explains the onset at which we see autism as we notice it at toddler age which is the same age TOM should be developing

Question 10

what do we use to test theory of mind in autistic children

Answer 10

Sally-Ann test

Question 11

what did the sally ann test find that supports TOM explanation

Answer 11

only 20% of autistic children were able to predict where sally would look for the doll based on their own knowledge.This supports the idea that autistic people have difficulty seeing the world from other people’s point of view

Question 12

how are adults tested for theory of mind

Answer 12

Baron-Cohen eye test

Question 13

How does the eye test support TOM as an explanation of autism

Answer 13

shows autistic children were less able to identify emotions of others when looking at someone’s eyes compared to allistic individuals.This demonstrates that they struggle to see the world from someone’s else’s perspective so can’t understand how others are feeling

Question 14

what is positive about the sally ann and eye test for test ability

Answer 14

both can be highly standardized =easy to repeat=check for consistency in results =high in validity

Question 15

what did Osterling and Dawson find that supports TOM

Answer 15

studied babies at first birthday parties .The ones who were later diagnosed as autistic tended to not pay attention to others faces . Supports idea of autistic people not being able to decentre as they assume everyone feels the same way they do

Question 16

what did Sheeran find that conflicts TOM

Answer 16

carried out a study in high functioning autistic adolescents and found very little difference in performance on TOM tasks compared to normal developing children

Question 17

how can we criticize the sally ann test

Answer 17

low in mundane realism

Question 18

what is the double empathy problem how is this a weakness of TOM

Answer 18

a non-autistic person struggles to empathize with an autistic person and vice versa.So there is a communication problem based on the society we have created

Question 19

what is a different theory that may be better to explain autism

Answer 19

extreme male brain may be more empirical as we can use brain scans to see size of corpous collosum and amygdala and laternalised brain patterns making it a more scientific explanation

Question 20

why is TOM difficult to test what is the consequence of this

Answer 20

difficult to measure cognitive processes like empathy and thoughts so we can’t use brain scans etc so theory less empirical so less valid

Question 21

how is TOM useful

Answer 21

can be used to explain behaviors in autistic children this is beneficial to understand how they live and and how to be more understanding