Theory of Mind and Narrative Abilities in Children with High-Functioning Autism
Date Issued
2009
Date
2009
Author(s)
Tsai, Pei-Chun
Abstract
Pragmatic impairment is well documented in children with high-functioning autism (HFA), and the narrative ability is one of the major components of pragmatics.. Studies repeatedly showed that deficit of Theory of Mind (TOM) could be the most important factor accounting for the pragmatic impairment. However, few studies in Taiwan has explored various aspects of developing TOM, narrative abilities, and their relations in HFA children. he present research adopted a Scaling of Theory of Mind task to explore various aspects the TOM development in HFA. Besides, a series of comic strips were included to examine the narrative performance in elementary children with HFA. Sixty 6-8 year-old children with HFA and typically-developing children matched with chronological age and verbal ability participated in this study. Results show: (1) the order of TOM development in children with HFA is: diverse desire, diverse belief, knowledge access, content false belief, location false belief, hidden emotion, and second-order false belief (2) children with HFA usually use lower level of attribution, i.e. physical and behavioral description, instead of mental state attribution, in their narrative. In addition, when making evaluations, children with HFA seldom refer to mental contents, but use more narrative enhancers, i.e., semantic intensifiers and sound effects.(3) regression analysis shows that more appropriate referring to the mental states of characters and less semantic enhancers contribute more to the variances of TOM in children with HFA. In brief, compared with control group, children with HFA show the impairment in TOM tasks that are mastered later in typically-developing children. In addition, some aspects of narrative abilities contribute more to the TOM development in children with HFA, showing the relations between pragmatic impairment and TOM deficit. Clinical implication to improve social interaction ability in children with HFA is also discussed.
Subjects
Theory of Mind
Narrative
High-Functioning Autism
school-aged children
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