Abstract
This paper argues that positing a Theory of Mind and mindreading abilities in particular is necessary in order to be able to account for the development and possible impairments of communication in normally developing children and individuals with autism. To account for the different impairments that people diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) exhibit, what is needed is a refinement of the levels or degrees of mind-reading abilities that are usually posited in the literature. Instead of the two-tiered system of first-and second-order mind-reading abilities, there is a need to propose several other layers of meta-representation to account for the comprehension of different communicative events, such as metaphors, under-and overstatements, direct and indirect speech acts, lies, deceits, humour, jokes, irony and sarcasm. This paper assumes a relevancetheoretic perspective to explain deficits in communicative abilities in individuals with ASD. It suggests that the pragmatic impairments specific to autism can be accounted for by the role of context retrieval in the comprehension and production process, especially those related to knowledge about the speaker.
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