Evaluation of the theory of mind in autism spectrum disorders with the Strange Stories test

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the theory of mind in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and control individuals by applying the Strange Stories test that was translated and adapted to the Portuguese language. Method: Twenty-eight children with ASD and 56 controls who were all male and aged between 6 and 12 years participated in the study. Results: There were significant differences between the median scores of the groups for each of the 12 stories of the test and for the sum total of all the median scores. The median scores for all stories were significantly greater in the control group than those in the experimental group (children with ASD). In addition, the protocol had excellent internal consistency. Conclusion: The theory of mind skills assessed with the Strange Stories test indicated alterations in children with ASD compared with children in the control group.Keywords: child developmental disorders, pervasive, autism, theory of mind. RESUMOObjetivo: Avaliação de habilidades de Teoria da Mente em indivíduos com Transtornos do Espectro do Autismo (TEA) e indivíduos-controle, com a aplicação do teste Strange Stories, traduzido e adaptado para a Língua Portuguesa. Método: Participaram do estudo 28 crianças com TEA e 56 crianças-controle, todas do sexo masculino e na faixa etária entre seis e 12 anos. Resultados: Foram observadas diferenças significativas entre os escores médios dos grupos em cada uma das 12 histórias do teste e na soma dos escores de todas as histórias. Os escores médios registrados para todas as histórias foram significativamente maiores no grupo-controle do que no grupo experimental (crianças com TEA). Observou-se ótima consistência interna do protocolo. Conclusão: As habilidades de Teoria da Mente avaliadas pelo teste Strange Stories se mostraram alteradas no grupo de crianças com TEA quando comparadas às crianças do grupo-controle.Palavras-chave: transtornos globais do desenvolvimento, autismo, teoria da mente.

Exploring ‘The autisms’ at a cognitive level

“…Our ToM results at a group level are consistent with other studies of autism finding a group difference on the ToM-condition in the Frith-Happ e Animations [Abell, Happ e, & Frith, 2000;Castelli, Frith, Happ e, & Frith, 2002;Salter, Seigal, Claxton, Lawrence, & Skuse, 2008] and in the Strange Stories vignettes that assessed mental state inference [Kaland, Callesen, Moller-Nielsen, Mortensen, & Smith, 2008;Spek, Scholte, & Van Berckelaer-Onnes, 2010;Velloso Rde, Duarte, & Schwartzman, 2013;White, Hill, Happ e, & Frith, 2009], as well as with those studies assessing performance across multiple cognitive domains Lai et al, 2012;Lam, 2013;Pellicano et al, 2006]. Despite great diversity in the tasks and methods used, ToM is consistently found to be impaired.…”

Beyond Sally's Missing Marble

“…Participants describe why they think the event took place, and their responses are coded for use of mentalistic explanations. Researchers have found that children and adolescents with developmental disorders (e.g., autism spectrum disorder) generally perform worse than typically developing controls matched on mental age (Happé, 1994;Jolliffe & Baron-Cohen, 1999;Velloso, Duarte, & Schwartzman, 2013;White, Hill, Happé, & Frith, 2009, but see Senju, Southgate, White, & Frith, 2009 for no differences). Three-to 12-year-olds with profound hearing impairments also demonstrate weaker understanding of sarcasm than matched controls, and even typically developing children fail to perform at ceiling (Peterson, Wellman, & Slaughter, 2012).…”

Development and psychometric properties of an informant assessment scale of theory of mind for adults with traumatic brain injury

“…The previously developed ToM tests, such as the False Belief Task, the Appearance-Reality Distinction Task, and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes measure, emphasise understanding of others' emotions and beliefs (Velloso, Duarte, & Schwartzman, 2013); the recently developed ToM tests, such as the Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT), the Assessments of Social Context (ASC), and the Social Interpretations Task (SIT), focus on the practical application of ToM in social contexts (Mazza et al, 2010;Wellman et al, 2011;Wellman & Liu, 2004). We extracted these elements of ToM from the literature and constructed our scale with three subscales: the understanding of beliefs, the understanding of emotions, and the ability to apply these understandings during social interactions.…”