ToM - Theory of Mind - As an explanation of Autism Flashcards
Is ToM not innate?
Yes it is not evident from birth
What happens before babies can understand other people?
They must develop a sense of self, realising they are seprate to other people
Self-rcognition develops rapidly from birth to two years
What has research shown how children develop a sense of self?
This is distinct from others
This leads an interest in others around them
Hence beginning to develop a ToM
What is an accronym for Theory of Mind?
ToM
What is the timeline of the development of self-recognition?
- 6-10 weeks - babies want to get used to faces showing emotion
- 3 months - eye-to-eye contact emerges
- 12-15 months - Pointing directions to avert other people’s attention
- 18-moths - pretend play emerages and child uses ‘ I, me , he , she;
- 2 years- sense of self has developed
What does ToM refer to?
The understanding that other people have different beliefs , emotions and intentions and they see the world from a different point of view to their own
This understanding is not evident from birth
An everday example of ToM is:
- Friend is nervous when sitting their A-level exams and you arent
Most people develop the ability to put themselves into someone else’s shoes and to ‘take their perspective’ , this helps to
- Understand different points of views
- From birth to 2 years old , self -recognition is fully developed this is a useful cognitive skill that helps put someone else’s shoes and ‘take their perspective’ to help consider the factors led to those mental states
What does Theory of Mind allows us to do…?
- The child to understand that must develop their own sense of self (predict behaviours) realising they are seprate to other people leading an interest around them
When does ToM develop?
Around children in the ages of 4-5 years old
How is theory of mind assessed?
Using false belief questions
e.g Maxi and his mother
What is autism?
Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with other people and how experience the world around them
Autism is a complex spectrum condition
Research has systematically divided the symptons of autism into three areas of impairment called what?
Wing’s triad
What are the three following principles of Wing’s triad?
- Social and emotional
- Flexibility of thought (imagination)
- Language and communication
What is the sympton for autism linking in with language and communication?
They do not not initiate in conversation
What is the sympton for social and emotional for autism?
- They do not engage in social situations
- They have problems with social interaction
- Absent eye contact
What is the typical characteristic of autism?
They find social interaction is difficult which may be explained by an inability to understand the mental states of other people and inability to predict , and adjust to and behaviour of others
Baron -Cohen et al (1985)
‘Sally- Anne test’
Aim
The aim fo this study is to investigate the explanation of childhood disroder of autism
Baron -Cohen et al (1985)
‘Sally- Anne test’
Procedure
- The study had involved three groups of participants , 20 children with autism and 14 children wtih Down’s syndrome of the similar chronological age but with lower mental age and 27 ‘normal’ children with the mean age of about 4 and a half years
- The children were asked some control questions such as ‘Where the marble really? just to check they had seen what happend’
- Finally asked the false belief question where Sally thought the marble was
Baron -Cohen et al (1985)
‘Sally- Anne test’
Findings
- About 85% of the normal children asnwered the false belief question correctly as well as the Down’s syndrome children
- This demonstrated that ToM is not linked with low intellgience
- Only 20* of the children with autism answered correctly
Baron -Cohen et al (1985)
‘Sally- Anne test’
Conculsion
This concluded that there is impairment with autistic individuals with their ToM ability
Why are there ethical issues a key in working with children?
They are too young to fully constent and take part in research
Therefore needs a full debriefing with parents because could suffer from psychological harm they should know
Why are there more ethical issues associated with autistic children?
Their communications skill lack so couldn’t be able to fully articulate themselevea and constent
Why could language used in false belief taks cause methologdical issues?
May have some sort of evidence of leading questions so decrease the validity of findings as could be biased
Why did Baron-Cohen use matched pair experiemntal design type to ensure what?
Fewer participants so lower risk of demand of charaistic so no order effects
Discuss ToM as an explanation of Autism
AO1 PLAN
- Talk about ToM
- What is autism
- What characteristic link with ToM being underdeveloped
A limitation
Ethical issues associated with ToM research as they commonly use young children as their participants
- Issues brought up such as informed consent and protection from harm
- This may affect the validity of the findings as the child may be stressed by the lab envirnoment so their behaviour cannot be generalised
- These issues can be improved by giving a full debreif to the parents and getting both consent from the child and the parents
- Furthermore giving the child the ability to withdraw from the study at any time
- This may question the researcher’s findings
A second limitation
Metholodigcal issues arise in ToM research especially using autistic children as they need to be careful with the use of language in false belief questions
- Austic children may have the difficulty of understanding the question or articulating their response - they have a problem with social interaction
- So they may fail due to this rather than their ToM ability being undeveloped
- Therefore this makes ToM as an explanation of autism lack validity
A third limitation
ToM’s studies shown to be culturally bias
- An evidence of this is in Baron-research of the ‘Sally-Anne test’ only used British people. Therefore only focused on a Western perspective
- Therefore these findings of the study cannot be generalised to non-western cultures in order to be used as an explanation of autism
- To improve the accuracy of ToM’s explanation you would need multi-cultural data to analyse this and be representative to wider populations
A strength
ToM as an explanation of autism is supported by the ‘Sally-Anne study’
- this procedure is used to test 20 high-functioning children that are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder , a control group of 14 children with Down’s syndrome and 27 children without a diagnosis and asked belief then the false belief sQs
- 85% of children in control group clearly identified that Sally would look for marbel but only 20% of the ASD group did , suggest ASD involves a ToM deficity
A limitation
It is difficult to distinguish ToM from perspective taking
- It is suggested that many methods used to study ToM (including Sally-Anne task) could actually be measures of perspective taking
- In addition , Rehfeldt et al (2007) suggest perspective taking tasks can be also used to distinguish between ASD children and others
- If ToM is basically the same perspective taking then concept lacks any usefulness
