Topic > Autism and Theory of Mind

Autism has a special place in my heart. Growing up, my godmother watched me and her two children during summer vacations. One of her children had autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, and I would later find out that my godmother and her husband also had ASD. Those summers gave me such a big heart for people with ASD, and learning more about the development of people with this disorder was a wonderful opportunity. I decided to read a study on the effects of children with autism spectrum disorder on the development of theory of mind, or ToM. Theory of Mind is the ability to identify different feelings, thoughts and behaviors in both yourself and other people. For example, being able to understand that just because you are sad doesn't mean the people around you are sad. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The main hypothesis of this study is that having childhood siblings with a child with autism spectrum disorder would influence the development of autistic children's theory of mind. They also studied to see whether the position of the child with ASD within the sibling constellation would play a role in that student's development of Theory of Mind. This study is directly related to the child's development because it has to do with the child's development of Theory. of the Mind, which influences social and emotional growth. Having strong ToM development helps the child become more in tune with their own emotions and understand the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of other people's actions throughout life, especially their peers. The article also talks about a couple of studies, such as a well-known Theory of Mind study by Wellman and Liu in 2004. The research measured executive function, or EF, which is based on a study by McAlister and Peterson in 2006. EF was measured in 2 parts: the ability to navigate a path and the resistance of instruction. This test also measured language ability based on a test conducted by Dunn and Dunn in 1997. In the current article, the children studied were administered a picture vocabulary test and were given a score based on their performance on that test . The children were also administered the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) to confirm their autism diagnosis and to see the severity of their symptoms. The children observed all had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. All observed siblings had normal development. The average age of the siblings was 5.50 years and the average gap in chronological age compared to the child with ASD was 2.70 years. Twenty-five percent of children with ASD had no siblings, 47% had only one, and the remaining 28% had two or more siblings. The study involved a sample of 60 Australians and New Zealanders (54 boys and 6 girls) aged between 3.6 and 12.6 years. The studio conducted research in many different ways. Since this was theory of mind research, some of the tasks were the analysis of changed location false belief, misleading container false belief, and representational change. One of the tests was between two children, Child A and Child B. When Child A was absent, Child B moved a marble to a new hiding place. They tested to see whether Child A would look for the marble in a new place or in the same place they had seen it before. Another test of the misleading container false belief involved a closed box of candy that actually contained pencils. They asked the child what they thought was in the box, then they thought about it.