The impact of grammar on mentalizing: A training study including children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Language Disorder

Training on complements in English, German, and Mandarin has been reported to trigger improvements on both complements and Theory of Mind (ToM), with typically developing (TD) pre-schoolers on the verge of developing these skills (Hale and Tager-Flusberg, 2003; Lohmann and Tomasello, 2003; Shuliang et al., 2014). In the current study, we build on the idea that increasing mastery of complementation holds the promise of enhancing ToM, and seek (i) to replicate the positive effects observed in previous work for this effect in French-speaking TD children, and (ii) to pilot extending this to clinical children, more specifically those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), through exploring whether improvement in the latter, clinical groups follows that of the TD group. Sixty children with ToM difficulties, 16 with ASD (aged 5;6–11;8), 20 with DLD (aged 4;8–9;0) and 24 typically developing children aged (2;9–5;3 years), participated in a 4-week training program. Half received training targeting sentential complements and half received a control training targeting lexical skills. Complementation training, but not lexical training, led to a significant direct increase in complements, and also had the indirect effect of significantly boosting belief reasoning. TD and clinical groups followed the same patterns of performance. These results confirm previous findings in other languages for TD, and further suggest promising new directions for therapeutic programs addressing ToM delays in populations of different aetiologies, namely the incorporation of a motivating training on complementation

Evolution of the links between theory of mind, syntax, and executive functions during development in children and adults with or without autism spectrum disorders

Le déficit de Théorie de l’Esprit (TE), c'est-à-dire de la capacité à prédire et à interpréter le comportement d’autrui sur la base des états mentaux (e.g., pensées, désirs, croyances) qu’on lui prête, reste un problème cognitif majeur dans les Troubles du Spectre Autistique (TSA). D'après la littérature différentes composantes syntaxiques et exécutives sont susceptibles d’intervenir dans la compréhension des états mentaux. Dans ce travail de thèse nous nous sommes intéressées à l’apport de la syntaxe d’enchâssement (i.e., Phrases Complétives, PC ; Phrases Relatives, PR) ainsi qu’au rôle des Fonctions Exécutives (FE) telles que l’inhibition, la flexibilité et la Mémoire de Travail (MT). Les objectifs principaux de cette thèse étaient : (1) Évaluer le développement de la TE au-delà de l’attribution de Fausses Croyances (FC) et indépendamment du langage chez les enfants avec ou sans TSA, (2) Déterminer quelles composantes syntaxiques et exécutives sont les plus utiles à la TE, (3) Évaluer l’évolution des liens entre syntaxe, Fonctions Exécutives (FE) et TE au cours du développement et (4) Évaluer l’existence de déficits syntaxiques et exécutifs ainsi que la nature des stratégies de compensation de la TE dans les TSA. Sur la base de nos résultats, à plus long terme nous souhaitons développer des protocoles de remédiation de la TE ciblant les fonctions cognitives qui la sous-tendent en fonction de l’âge des individus. Pour cela, nous avons mené plusieurs études comportementales chez des enfants et des adultes avec ou sans TSA en utilisant des tâches de TE à la demande verbale et exécutive réduite. Nos travaux ont mené à la créaction d’un outil permettant d’évaluer ledéveloppement de la TE au-delà des tâches de FC et en minimisant l’impact des variables confondues telles que le langage. Ils ont également permis de mettre en évidence une implication particulière des PC et de la MT pour la TE pendant l’enfance mais pas à l’âge adulte, suggérant que ces composantes cognitives sont utiles au développement de la TE plutôt qu’au raisonnement de TE en tant que tel. Nos résultats n’ont pas toujours permis de mettre en évidence l’existence de déficits syntaxiques ou exécutifs dans les TSA. Ceci suggère que ces déficits ne sont peut-être pas présents chez tous les individus avec TSA et soulèvent également l’importance d’utiliser des tâches écologiques pour évaluer la présence de déficits subtils. Par ailleurs, l’étude de la nature des stratégies de compensation de la TE dans les TSA s’est avérée plus compliquée que prévue. Nous suggérons que cela provient de la difficulté à identifier précisément les individus qui les mettent en oeuvre.Theory of Mind (ToM), that is to say the ability to predict and interpret others’ behavior based on their mental states (e.g., thoughts, desires, beliefs) is affected in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). According to the literature, several syntactic and executive abilities are likely to be implied in mental state understanding. In this thesis, we were interested in the role of the syntax of embedding (i.e., Complement Sentences, CS; Relative Clause Sentences, RCS) and in the role of Executive Functions (EF) such as inhibition, flexibility and Working Memory (WM). The main goals of this thesis were to (1) Assess ToM development beyond False Belief (FB) attribution and independently from language in children with or without ASD, (2) Determine the syntactic and executive components that are the most useful for ToM, (3) Highlight the evolution of the links between syntax, Executive Functions (EF) and ToM during development (4) Identify the existence of syntactic and executive deficits, as well as the nature of compensation strategies for ToM in ASD. The long term goal was to allow the development of remediation protocols for ToM targeting cognitive abilities which underlie it depending on people’s age. For that purpose, we ran several behavioral studies in children and adults with or without ASD using ToM tasks entailing reduced verbal and executive demands. Our work lead to the creation of a tool enabling the assessment of ToM development beyond FB tasks while minimizing the impact of confounding variables such as language. Our findings highlighted a particular role of CS and WM in ToM during childhood but not during adulthood, suggesting that these cognitive abilities are useful for ToM development rather than ToM reasoning per se. Our results did not always highlight the existence of syntactic and executive deficits in ASD and thus illustrated the marked heterogeneity of these skills in this population but also importance of using ecological tasks to assess subtle deficits. Moreover, the study of the nature of compensation strategies for ToM in ASD turned out to be more challenging than expected and we propose that this may have resulted from the difficulty to precisely identify peoplewho implement them

Role of Two Types of Syntactic Embedding in Belief Attribution in Adults with or without Asperger Syndrome

International audienceThe role of syntax in belief attribution (BA) is not completely understood in healthy adults and understudied in adults with autism spectrum disorder. Embedded syntax could be useful either for the development of Theory of Mind (ToM) (Emergence account) or more generally over the lifespan (Reasoning account). Two hypotheses have been explored, one suggesting that embedding itself (Relatives and Complement sentences and Metarepresentation account) is important for ToM and another one considering that the embedding of a false proposition into a true one (Complement sentences and Misrepresentation account) is important. The goals of this study were to evaluate (1) the role of syntax in ToM (Emergence vs. Reasoning account), (2) the type of syntax implied in ToM (Metarepresentation vs. Misrepresentation account), and (3) the verbally mediated strategies which compensate for ToM deficits in adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS). Fifty NeuroTypical (NT) adults and 22 adults with AS were involved in a forced-choice task including ±ToM tasks (BA and a control task, physical causation, PC) under four Interference conditions (silence, syllable repetition, relative sentences repetition, and complement sentences repetition). The non-significant ±ToM × Interference interaction effect in the NT group did not support the Reasoning account and thus suggests that syntax is useful only for ToM development (i.e., Emergence account). Results also indicated that repeating complement clauses put NT participants in a dual task whereas repeating relative clauses did not, suggesting that repeating relatives is easier for NT than repeating complements. This could be an argument in favor of the Misrepresentation account. However, this result should be interpreted with caution because our results did not support the Reasoning account. Moreover, AS participants (but not NT participants) were more disrupted by ±ToM tasks when asked to repeat complement sentences compared to relative clause sentences. This result is in favor of the Misrepresentation account and indirectly suggests verbally mediated strategies for ToM in AS. To summarize, our results are in favor of the Emergence account in NT and of Reasoning and Misrepresentation accounts in adults with AS. Overall, this suggests that adults with AS use complement syntax to compensate for ToM deficits

Reducing the Language Content in ToM Tests: A Developmental Scale.

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Theory‐of‐mind during childhood: Investigating syntactic and executive contributions

International audienceBoth syntax and Executive Functions (EF) are involved in Theory-of-Mind (ToM) but their contributory roles have mainly been studied separately. Moreover, researchers have mostly administered False Belief (FB) tasks while they may not be representative of all ToM abilities. Studies of adults give valuable information regarding whether syntax and EF are useful for ToM reasoning (i.e., Reasoning account), however, only the study of children brings direct evidence in favor of ToM emergence (i.e., Emergence account). Also, because the ToM tasks used often entail verbal and executive demands, the links observed could mostly result from such confounds (i.e., Expression account). We evaluated ToM, syntactic and EF abilities in 126 children (3-11 y.o.) using a set of ToM tasks with minimal verbal and executive demands. Our goals were to assess (1) the hierarchical contribution of syntax and EF to ToM, (2) whether results previously obtained for FB tasks are representative of ToM in general, (3) whether the ToM-syntax and ToMEF links are constant (i.e., Reasoning account) or decrease during development (i.e., Emergence accounts). Results of stepwise regression analyses showed a predominant role of syntax over EF to predict ToM abilities. The comparison of results for ToM and FB tasks showed that FB is not always representative of ToM. Finally, there was no moderating effect of ag

Theory‐of‐mind during childhood: Investigating syntactic and executive contributions

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