Assessment of theory of mind in children with communication disorders: role of presentation mode.
Switching from spoken to line-drawn ToM tasks boosts scores for kids with SLI and can alter outcomes for kids with ASD.
01Research in Context
What this study did
van Buijsen et al. (2011) gave theory-of-mind tasks to three groups: kids with autism, kids with specific language impairment, and typically developing peers. They changed only the way the story was shown: some children heard the story, others saw line drawings, and a third group watched a live acted version.
Each child answered the same false-belief questions. The team then compared scores across the three presentation modes within each diagnostic group.
What they found
The mode of presentation mattered, but only for the clinical groups. Children with SLI scored highest when the story was told with simple line drawings. Children with ASD showed mixed results: some did better with pictures, others with acted scenes, and a few with the spoken version.
Typically developing children scored the same no matter how the story was delivered.
How this fits with other research
Vugs et al. (2014) helps explain why SLI kids needed the visual boost. That study showed preschoolers with SLI have large working-memory and executive-function deficits. Line drawings cut memory load, letting the children focus on the belief question.
Spanoudis et al. (2011) found the same memory weakness in older SLI children and linked it to trouble learning mental-state words. Marit's picture advantage lines up perfectly: fewer words to hold in mind, better ToM score.
Geurts et al. (2008) mapped parent-reported language profiles in the same young ASD/SLI groups. Their data warned that pragmatic deficits spike in school-age ASD. Marit's mixed ASD results now add a second warning: test mode can flip the score you get.
Why it matters
Before you write ToM goals, run a quick modality probe. If the child has SLI, start with line-drawn tasks; you may see an instant jump in correct answers. If the child has ASD, test at least two modes and pick the one that yields the clearest baseline. One small switch can save weeks of later intervention time.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children with communication disorders have problems with both language and social interaction. The theory-of-mind hypothesis provides an explanation for these problems, and different tests have been developed to test this hypothesis. However, different modes of presentation are used in these tasks, which make the results difficult to compare. In the present study, the performances of typically developing children, children with specific language impairments, and children with autism spectrum disorders were therefore compared using three theory-of-mind tests (the Charlie test, the Smarties test, and the Sally-and-Anne test) presented in three different manners each (spoken, video, and line drawing modes). The results showed differential outcomes for the three types of tests and a significant interaction between group of children and mode of presentation. For the typically developing children, no differential effects of presentation mode were detected. For the children with SLI, the highest test scores were consistently evidenced in the line-drawing mode. For the children with ASD, test performance depended on the mode of presentation. Just how the children's non-verbal age, verbal age, and short-term memory related to their test scores was also explored for each group of children. The test scores of the SLI group correlated significantly with their short-term memory, those of the ASD group with their verbal age. These findings demonstrate that performance on theory-of-mind tests clearly depend upon mode of test presentation as well as the children's cognitive and linguistic abilities.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2011 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2011.01.036