A continuous false belief task reveals egocentric biases in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders.

Sander and team gave kids a Sandbox false-belief task. Instead of pass or fail, the task measures how far off a child's answer is from the right spot.

They compared high-functioning kids with autism to same-age peers. All kids were old enough to talk and follow directions.

The autism group showed a bigger egocentric bias. Their answers stayed closer to where they knew the toy was, not where the story character thought it was.

Even kids who could pass standard false-belief tests still showed this subtle bias on the Sandbox task.

Richman et al. (2001) already showed that two different false-belief tasks give a clearer picture than one. Sander adds a third, more sensitive option.

Dhadwal et al. (2021) later taught false-belief skills to autistic kids using everyday play. Their success shows the bias Sander found can be trained away.

Davison et al. (2010) saw delays in blind children, but blamed the sensory loss, not autism. Sander's delays come from autism itself, not vision issues.

If you work with high-functioning clients who pass regular Theory-of-Mind tests but still seem socially off, try a continuous task like the Sandbox. It can catch small gaps that standard tests miss. Once you spot the bias, you can design teaching programs like Dhadwal's to close it.