Cognitive linguistic correlates of ‘theory of mind’ ability in autistic children

Abstract

A specific deficit in theory of mind has been proposed to explain the distinct pattern of social/cognitive deficits in autistic individuals (Frith, 1989). However, it is clear that a number of children are able to demonstrate knowledge of mental states in others (Prior, Dahlstrom & Squires, 1990), hence an important question is what particularly characterizes those autistic children who do show theory of mind. Baron‐Cohen (1988) has argued that pragmatic language skills and theory of mind ability ought to be intimately related since they draw on similar representational abilities. We examined the cognitive linguistic correlates of this ability in 29 high functioning autistic children. The 11 children who could reliably show this ability were compared with those who could not, on CA, verbal MA, pragmatic language skills, WISC Vocabulary, Comprehension and Similarities, and were superior on all measures except Vocab and CA. A stepwise discriminant function analysis showed an 86 per cent correct classification of the two groups with pragmatic skills and abstract thinking as the best discriminators.Procedural and instructional variables were also assessed in this study, as was reliability of theory of mind ability from one year to the next. Most children were stable in their demonstrated knowledge. The addition of the word ‘first’ to the false belief question (Where will Sally first look for the marble?) allowed 50 per cent of the originally failing group to answer the question correctly, suggesting the need for extreme care in the details of replication experiments of this kind. Our results support the likelihood of a developmental delay in theory of mind in autism rather than endorsing the notion that this is a specific deficit with pervasive explanatory power. However, the findings might also support the ‘continuum’ conceptualization of autism with more mildly autistic children able to demonstrate knowledge of mental states and to develop adequate pragmatic language competence.