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Belief Term Development in Children with Autism, Asperger Syndrome, Specific Language Impairment, and Normal Development: Links to Theory of Mind Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 1998

Kathryn Ziatas ,
Kevin Durkin  and
Chris Pratt
Kathryn Ziatas
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
Kevin Durkin
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
Chris Pratt
Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
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Abstract

This study examined the relationship between the development of theory of mind and the development of the belief terms think, know, and guess. Children with autism and Asperger syndrome, matched to children with specific language impairment and normal development, completed false belief, belief term comprehension, and belief term expression tasks. The autistic group's performance on the false belief, belief term comprehension, and belief term expression tasks was significantly poorer than that of the Asperger, language impaired, and normal groups. Across groups an association was found between false belief and belief term performance. Results support a growing body of literature demonstrating links between the development of theory of mind and communicative competence.

Keywords

Asperger syndromeautismlanguage disordercommunicationlanguagesocial cognition
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines , Volume 39 , Issue 5 , July 1998 , pp. 755 - 763
Copyright
© 1998 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry

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