who gets this?

[Suze]

O.k ...I mentioned in another thread about a theory of mind type test that my son had done with his salt..............they said he did,nt understand it.........well I did,nt either .So I thought I,d post it to see if I ain,t the only one

 

"A man who was walking in the woods near a cemetery stopped suddenly , very frightened, and then ran to the nearest policeman, saying that he had just seen something hanging from the branch of a tree"

 

 

.................my boy was asked what was it .........he answered a bird?....a leaf??...

 

 

.............now my initial thought was oh its a balloon with its string tangled up

 

 

 

 

..............this confused me so much that when we discussed it at his annual review they had to explain it to me.

 

.........the answer or presumption should be that "someone "was "hanging" from the tree,..............

[oxgirl]

That seems really silly to me and also not a very pleasant thing to bring up with children, if I'm honest. My initial thought was that it was a body hanging from the tree. I guess the point is that you have to ask yourself why the person was so frightened and why he ran to a policeman. Of course, he could have seen anything and imagined it to be a ghost or a body or something when really it was a plastic bag or something, and that would have made him frightened and run to the policeman because he was spooked. I think that's a really stupid question though, but I guess the point they're getting at is why was he frightened by what he saw??!! Weird!

 

~ Mel ~

[hev]

i thought a person but i think its a horrible question to ask a child i really do

[Flora]

I just asked Bill and then my DS seperately this question and they both said 'a dead body'. Bill even said, 'duh, it's painfully obvious, how is that a puzzle?'. So there ya go, 2 people with AS saying dead body (me and Bill) and one NT dd!

 

I guess we have horrible minds

 

edited to say; is that actually a theory of mind indicator anyway? I always thought theory of mind was trying to see things from another person's point of view or reading inference into something obvious; ie.... do you have a watch on? and just answering 'yes' without telling the person the time, would indicate a lack of theory of mind.

 

 

Further edit to say I asked Ben the same thing and he said 'a massive conker' I then asked him why he would tell the police about that and he thought about it and said 'in case it fell on somebody's head'....

 

Flozza X

Edited May 24, 2008 by Flora

[Suze]

no it isn,t a theory of mind is it ????!! ............it was done during a SALT assessment and I think it was more to do with use of language.But I still don,t really get the whole thing.My first thought was what could be hanging from a tree..............and a balloon or twig seemed the obvious answer.I just did,nt think of" hanging " in the" hung "..dead sense, I just presumed the man was frightened cos he misinterpreted the scene.If it had been a body surely it would have said in the text and not been so non-commital.

[justamum]

wasn't obvious to me it was a body as the it says 'something' not someone.

 

I asked my son, possible AS, he said a leaf.

 

My daughter, classes as 'normal', hadn't a clue!

[baddad]

It's a very odd question because it seems incomplete...

 

If they asked 'What did the man think he saw?' then a hanging body/ a ghost (it's by a cemetery), is the 'logical' (and imaginative) answer.

 

Asking what did he see involves two 'stages' of imagination - the first to identify what the man thinks he saw which sent him running to the police, and the second to replace that with a more 'logical' explanation for what was there (a balloon/bin liner)

 

Your littlun's answer was very literal - he answered with something you would expect to see in a tree (a bird... a leaf?), but that doesn't offer any explanation for the other elements of the story (the man's panic/calling the police), suggesting he 'missed' the implications of those elements.

 

 

[ScienceGeek]

I didn't get dead body either. My first thought was a bat

[bid]

I thought 'a body'.

 

Boho

[gothschild]

My son thought a bat too!

[smiley]

I thought something horrid - 'coz the man was scared. But monkey said 'cat stuck???'

[oxgirl]

I asked Jay and he really surprised me by saying 'a dead person because it was near the cemetary'. I really didn't think that people hanging themselves would be something that he would have come across, just goes to show.

 

~ Mel ~

[sadie]

Another one who didn't get it!!!!! It did say 'something' not 'someone'.

[baddad]

Asked ben this morning, and he said 'A skull'. Then he qualified it to 'skeleton' and then 'a body'...

 

[David Matthew Baker]

My first thought was urgh?! where is the info that I need. Then after reading it again I decided the part about the cemetery was just clutter and not really needed so thought about it without that bit. That then left it as something that would send someone running to the police so a very queried body came into my head but I wasn't sure it made sense until I read down a bit further in the post. It does seem a very strange question. Part of my hesitation in answering it might be because I'm tired though and my brain is having a harder time processing stuff. Have talked a couple of times on the phone this evening and if the person at the other end of the phones fully understood me I'll be amazed. On a bit of a down after the camp. Just don't seem to have much energy left. (Hence a short[ish] post for the first time today!)