{"id":375,"date":"2020-04-22T17:22:42","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T16:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/upgrade-rocs\/?p=375"},"modified":"2020-08-21T14:04:03","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T13:04:03","slug":"what-did-i-say-versus-what-did-i-think-attributing-false-beliefs-to-self-amongst-children-with-and-without-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/what-did-i-say-versus-what-did-i-think-attributing-false-beliefs-to-self-amongst-children-with-and-without-autism\/","title":{"rendered":"What did I say? versus What did I think?: Attributing false beliefs to self amongst children with and without autism."},"content":{"rendered":"

Find more information about the Kent author here<\/a>
\nFind the full paper\u00a0<\/strong>here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

About<\/span><\/b>\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states both to others and to the self. It involves understanding that others can have different thoughts and knowledge compared to ourselves and helps us understand and predict behaviour. <\/span>Furthermo<\/span>re, ToM allows one to recognize<\/span> that both the self and others can have false beliefs about the world. <\/span><\/p>\n

A large body of research show<\/span>s<\/span> that <\/span>Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by marked impairments in ToM.<\/span> However, the current study suggests that the most widely used <\/span>false belief <\/span>task<\/span> (<\/span>Smarties<\/span> task)<\/span> to measure T<\/span>oM may not be effective in children with ASD. Accordingly, this may result in artificially inflated levels of performance. <\/span>Specifically, the current study hypothesises that children with ASD might have greater difficulty representing their own beliefs compared to others\u2019 beliefs. The authors propose an improved vers<\/span>ion of the tradition<\/span>al task to study this hypothesis.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Research Objectives<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u2022 \u00a0To explore <\/span>whether children with ASD would be unique in performing significantly less well on recognising <\/span>self false<\/span> beliefs<\/span> compare to others\u2019 false beliefs using\u00a0a new task (Plasters task)<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0Children with developmental disability (DD) and typically developing (TD) children were expected to perform equally well on both tests of false beliefs.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0To compare the Plasters task to the traditional <\/span>Smarties<\/span> task and explore whether children with ASD would perform similar to TD and DD on the <\/span>Smarties<\/span> task.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Programme and Methodology<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Participants:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a052 children with ASD
\n\u2022 \u00a025 children with developmental disability
\n\u2022 \u00a041 typically developing children<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0All participants completed: the\u00a0<\/span>Plasters task (see full paper for details of the task).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0A sub-sample of children with ASD and all TD children completed the <\/span>Smarties<\/span> task.<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Findings<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u2022 \u00a0In line with the main prediction of the study, participants with ASD found it significantly more difficult to report their own false belief than to predict the false belief of another person using \u00a0the new Plasters task.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0TD and DD participants performed similarly across the self and other false belief questions using the Plasters task.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0All participants performed similarly across the self and other false belief question in the classic\u00a0<\/span>Smarties<\/span> test.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Impact<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u2022 \u00a0This project offered <\/span>new and important evidence:<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0Children with ASD found i<\/span>t<\/span> relatively<\/span> more difficult to recognise their own (false) beliefs than the (false) beliefs of other people. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0 Using scaffolding (the confound factor in the classic\u00a0<\/span>Smarties<\/span> task), individuals with ASD were capable of passing false belief test questions.
\nNote: caution should be taken when interpreting which cognitive processes individuals with ASD employ to pass the questions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0This project offers important implications for educators:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0These findings showcase ways in which individuals with ASD learn about the world and how they understand their own and others\u2019 behaviour. These should be taken into consideration within and outside the classroom<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Find more information about the Kent author here Find the full paper\u00a0here About\u202f\u00a0 Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states both to others and to the self. It involves understanding that others can have different thoughts and knowledge compared to ourselves and helps us understand and predict behaviour. Furthermore, ToM allows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2808,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions\/2808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}