Beyond False Beliefs: The Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Perceptions of Children’s Theory of Mind Measure—Experimental Version (PCToMM-E)

Abstract

The Perceptions of Children's Theory of Mind Measure (Experimental version; PCToMM-E) is an informant measure designed to tap children's theory of mind competence. Study one evaluated the measure when completed by primary caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder. Scores demonstrated high test-retest reliability and correlated with verbal mental age and ToM task battery performance. No ceiling effects were observed. In addition, caregivers accurately predicted their children's ToM task battery performance. In study two the scores of primary caregivers of typically developing children demonstrated high test-retest reliability and distinguished children on the basis of age and developmental status. Ceiling effects were not evident until late childhood. The utility of the PCToMM-E and directions for future research are discussed.

Theory of mind predominantly associated with the quality, not quantity, of pretend play in children with autism spectrum disorder

“…A child's ToM developmental stage is determined based on the cut-point (3) of each developmental level as follows: before early developmental level, early developmental level, basic developmental level, and advanced developmental level. The TOMTB has been shown to have good test-retest reliability, internal consistency, construct validity, and concurrent validity with the Theory of Mind Inventory (ToMI) [38,40].…”

“…Therefore, in this study, two cut-off points were adopted: Cut-off points of 30 and 25.5 were, respectively, used for children with IQs below 80 and for those with IQs of 80 or higher. The reliability and validity of the CARS have been well established, including the internal consistency [27,40], test-retest reliability [27], inter-rater reliability [40], convergent validity [46], and sensitivity and specificity [45,47].…”

Psychometric Evaluation of the Theory of Mind Inventory (ToMI): A Study of Typically Developing Children and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…The ToM Task Battery (Hutchins et al 2008a) originally consisted of 16 test questions within nine tasks designed to tap a range of ToM tasks. The items range in complexity and are presented in the form of static visual stimuli.…”

“…First, standard ToM tasks (e.g., the Sally-Ann task and other structured elicitation procedures) are often scored on a dichotomous pass/fail basis and even ToM task batteries designed to assess a range of ToM competencies are limited in their ability to adequately tap the content domain relevant to construct of ToM (Hutchins et al 2008a). In addition, it has long been recognized that the administration of many ToM tasks are complicated by cognitive and linguistic (e.g., Wellman et al 2001) as well as situational (Tager-Flusberg 1999) and motivational (Begeer et al 2003) performance factors.…”

Administration of the Autism Behavior Checklist: agreement between parents and professionals' observations in two intervention contexts

“…The reliability of the Perceptions of Children's Theory of Mind Measure was demonstrated. 18 The aim of this scale is to map children's skills regarding the theory of mind. Caregivers of children of the autism spectrum responded to the instrument on two separate occasions.…”