Browsing by Author "Weissman, Alison"

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    Behavioral and Conceptual Measures of Intentional Understanding in Typical Children and Children with Autism
    (2002) Weissman, Alison; Perloe, Sidney; Cassidy, Kimberly Wright
    Two main lines of research support the contention that individuals with autism lack the ability to attribute mental states to themselves and others. Some researchers compare the behaviors of typical children and children with autism (CW A) or each population's use of eye stimuli. Others investigate CWA's performance on the "litmus test" of mind understanding, the false belief task. Both directions of research, stemming from the typical child's development of mind understanding, show deficits among CW A. This study investigated the appropriateness of these measures for individuals with autism. The research measured CWA's and typical children's conceptual understanding of the mind, at the level of intent, as well as their behavioral displays of "mind understanding." A 2 (Group/ Autistic, Typical) x 2 (Measure/Concept, Behavior) ANOVA indicated an interaction. Planned effects indicated that CW A were as competent as typical children in utilizing an understanding of intent to guide their spontaneous judgments, but were less able to show behavioral displays of mind understanding than typical children. The results are contrasted to the theory of mind hypothesis of autism and compared to the behavioral research to support this hypothesis. It is suggested that the methodological approaches for typical subjects are less appropriate measures of mind understanding for children with the social and behavioral deficits characteristic of individuals with autism.