Factors influencing the development of a theory of mind in blind children

Abstract

This study explored the development of a theory of mind in blind children aged 5 to 12 years. A total of 23 children with severe visual impairment or total blindness in three age groups (6, 8 and 12 years) were tested on a battery of four false belief tests involving changed locations and misleading appearances. They also took a standard test of Level 2 visual perspective‐taking. A majority of 6‐year‐old blind children failed the false belief tests, and though performance improved with age, significant difficulties persisted in the 8‐year‐olds whose performance did not exceed chance on most tasks. However, the 12‐year‐olds displayed an understanding of mental states that was near ceiling with 70% of them passing all four tests of false belief and 90% passing at least three. The results of a multiple regression analysis confirmed that whereas increasing age significantly predicted gains in false belief understanding, the child's level of visual impairment (totally blind or severely visually impaired) did not influence false belief performance. Accurate Level 2 visual perspective‐taking was present in the vast majority of these children from the age of 6 years, so that the difficulties observed with theory of mind concepts could not be attributed to an inability to understand other people's perceptions. In contrast to previous research, the blind children in the present sample found false belief tests involving the changed location of objects just as difficult as those involving misleading containers. There were similarly no significant effects of gender, or of the presence or absence of a physical or learning disability, upon false belief performance.