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What do you think?

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I was looking on another site where they were describing the "theory of mind" thing and described an experiment, a video. In it, there were two women called Sally and Anne. S had a basket and A had a basket. S had a marble in her basket. She went out of the room and A took her marble and placed it in her (A's) basket. The viewers were then asked where S would look for her marble when she discovered it was missing and apparently the ASD children (experiment was for children) would say A's basket, because supposedly they lacked the theory of mind to think S would see things differently than them.

Now, I know I suspect I have Aspergers, but although I would have said "A's basket" my response would probably have been the same as that of a definite NT. My reasoning would have been: S sees her marble has gone. It hasn't dropped out, therefore it's been taken. A is in the room and knows of her marble. Therefore, it is likely that A has hidden it. A would want to hide it somewhere she could have close to her and a logical place would be A's basket. Hence, S should look there first.

Surely the experiment would reveal more if the marble was hidden somewhere totally different?

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You have to say the the first place she looks, not after checking hers first. An ASD child wouldn't usually be able to say

: S sees her marble has gone. It hasn't dropped out, therefore it's been taken.

 

As they wouldn't pressume she would even check it is there. They would say that S would check A basket first as thats where they last seen it put and can't imagine being in S's shoes and not seeing it being moved.

 

Where the item is makes no difference. All the test is is that can they imagine being the other person. You could put is anywhere you wanted if you did this experiment with my ASD son and he'd say she looked the last place he seen it put.

Edited by lil_me

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Aha! Now I understand!

Edited by Bullet

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You can use the same theory for dealing with behaviour. Trying to cope with our children is difficult trying to get them to comform is impossible. Therefore if your child have behavioural habits you deal with the one which is causing you the most difficult and ignore the others.

 

 

Behaviours that are repetive you put in basket C, such as your child likes to walk up the road on the right hand side.

The behaviour or repetition you do not like but you can put up with goes in basket B.e.g. when you child gets angry he/she shunts

 

The behaviour which you find most difficult you put in basket A and deal with it. e.g. safety issues or other issues that would make it uncomfortable for you to live with your child

 

This is how you keep your sanity.

 

Jen

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Bullet,

 

The Ed psychologist did this test with my son, he used his cuddly toys to do it, at the end when he asked my son where teddy would look, my son pointed to the one where Teddy had left it.

 

The psych was quite schocked and said 'he has good theory of mind, autisic children normally point to the

one that it's in', I personally did not think this test was all that, and felt that a single test like this could not show how my son presents in various situations.

 

Sorry, cant quite explain what I mean here, I suppose I didn't feel comfortable that in his report he put

'shows very good understanding of theory of mind', this is the only test he did for this! :unsure:

 

Brook

Edited by Brook

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It is basically a test to see if someone can put themselves into 'someone elses shoes'

 

We do it with all kinds of objects etc

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally-Anne_test

 

That explains a lot of it.

 

More info

 

 

http://groups.msn.com/TheAutismHomePage/theoryofmind.msnw

http://www.holah.karoo.net/baronstudy.htm

Edited by lil_me

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Yes, but it is usually done with either pictures or toys etc. With my son we had a shark and a whale, a marble and 2 smartie tubes. I started this way as I knew he would take notice. So we said the shark has the marble and puts it in his tube, he goes for a swim. Whilst he's out the cheeky Orca puts the marble in his tube. The shark came back. Where does he think his marble is.

 

And were working on different characters now and different situations to improve my sons theory of mind and empathy. It is working, but it is taking a loooooong time. Going through each one, seeing what he thinks and then explaining why he wasn't right etc

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Ah yes i understand now !

I do this same thing with real life situations with my daughter.

Trying to teach her to understand that people do not neccassarily see things the way she sees them. Not to assume people know what she knows. etc ..

Actually after reading a lot of the posts on this site im starting to realise that she has actually come a long way forward in the last few months so its quite encouraging. It also shows it is possible !

Edited by ROBANDDEB

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Sorry, I didn't explain myself very well in my previous post :unsure:

I know how the SallyAnne test is replicated, but I still think a child has to have a good grasp of language to be able to understand the key question of 'where does X think the Y will be ?'

My son is 6 and we are only know beginning to introduce the idea of 'think', as for asking him what another person would think, he wouldn't have a clue :unsure:

I think you can only carry out this test with children who have language skills appropriate-ish for their age ?

I asked my undx AS 10 yr old the question, and he gave me the right answer straightaway, with a 'DUH, that's obvious' look :rolleyes:

Hope I've explained myself better than last night ! (I was in a rush, awaiting my next call to the sick beds :sick::tearful: )

 

wac

 

P.S. lil-me, did you get the funding info I sent ? sorry totally off-topic I know :oops:

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Hi to all :)

 

My son was getting the theorie of mine wrong at age 6 but start to get it right at 7, I think one of the point is that many ASD children will eventually develope it latter than their peers because they rely on an intellectual reasoning and not on their intuition.

For example H for many years would think that I could see him accross the wall untill I started to repeat to him in various situation that I was not "superman" and did not have Xray eyes so could not see him accross the walls the funny side of it allowed him to understand the concept it is when he started to pull faces :P behind his Dad back and his teacher back to verifie is they could see him and had eyes in the back of their head, he eventually put 2 and 2 toghether and start to be able to lie :oops: which is an achievement for children with ASD. All this is part of the theorie of mind as well as understanding somebody else feeling.

 

I remember trying to explain to H how Dad was feeling when he told him that he wanted him to go away telling H to remember how he felt when his friend told him he did not want to play with him anymore, :tearful: H had told me that he felt he had a broken heart, he then seemed really to understand but all this is very difficult for him to grasp :oops: without connecting him to something he can refere to because of his own experience or because of something he was able to visualised through a movie or cartoon.

 

Malika.

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My sons physch reports showed he understood some theory of mind , but his main point of difficulty was emotions , how people would feel, he could,nt get this correct at all.I also agree that some kids do develop theory of mind but it takes alot longer and heaps more effort.

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I think theory of mind is more complicated than it's made out to be. It's often put forward as 'proof' of ASDs but I do believe there are aspects of it that children are able to understand and others they can't. I've done a version of Sally Anne with J and he got it no problem, yet he still runs away and hides several times a day in the same place (not even a good hidey place, an open-legged coffee table where he was in full view) and is astonished that I know where he is. And he'll tell a joke to dh while I'm present then go on to tell the same joke to me, unaware that I might have heard it. I could go on. Personally I think there should be several theory of mind tests but most psychologists only seem to do one, as far as I can tell.

 

Karen

x

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'he'll tell a joke to dh while I'm present then go on to tell the same joke to me, unaware that I might have heard it.'

 

Karen, we used to say (long before diagnosis) that our boy seemed to think he spoke in 'straight lines' -- as if no one but the person he intended to speak to could hear him. (He also suffered from 'one-way air', meaning we could hear him but he couldn't hear us....)

Thinking about it, I suppose that's related to why he still can't see when to answer in class and when it's someone else's turn; why he can't tell if remarks are made to him or not; why he always, always, talks at me if I'm on the phone to someone else; and why he finds the art of conversation such a mystery. I wonder if it's also why he thinks the greatest possible treat for his friends would be to watch him successfully complreting computer challenges (he's enjoying himself, therefore....)

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Karen, we used to say (long before diagnosis) that our boy seemed to think he spoke in 'straight lines' -- as if no one but the person he intended to speak to could hear him. (He also suffered from 'one-way air', meaning we could hear him but he couldn't hear us....)

Thinking about it, I suppose that's related to why he still can't see when to answer in class and when it's someone else's turn; why he can't tell if remarks are made to him or not; why he always, always, talks at me if I'm on the phone to someone else; and why he finds the art of conversation such a mystery. I wonder if it's also why he thinks the greatest possible treat for his friends would be to watch him successfully complreting computer challenges (he's enjoying himself, therefore....)

Lancelot, sounds like you're me in a parallel universe!

 

Karen

x

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