Theory of mind and central coherence in adults with high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome

The study investigated theory of mind and central coherence abilities in adults with high-functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger syndrome (AS) using naturalistic tasks. Twenty adults with HTA/AS correctly answered significantly fewer theory of mind questions than 20 controls on a forced-choice response task. On a narrative task, there were no differences in the proportion of mental state words between the two groups, although the participants with HFA/AS were less inclined to provide explanations for characters' mental states. No between-group differences existed on the central coherence questions of the forced-choice response task, and the participants with HTA/AS included an equivalent proportion of explanations for non-mental state phenomena in their narratives as did controls. These results support the theory of mind deficit account of autism spectrum disorders, and suggest that difficulties in mental state attribution cannot be exclusively attributed to weak central coherence

Weak central coherence: a cross-domain phenomenon specific to autism?

This study investigated whether evidence for the weak central coherence theory could be specifically associated with a group of children with autism compared with normally developing children (n = 17 per group). Two tasks were employed, one involving visual illusions and the other verbal homophones. Both were based on tasks used in previous central coherence research. Incorporation of tasks involving the use of different domains (verbal versus visual) also enabled the investigation of claims that weak central coherence is a cross-domain processing style or deficit. The autistic group were found to be no different to the control group in performance on the visual illusions task. The autistic group made more errors than the normally developing group on the rare condition of the homophone task. However, analysis suggests this difference is mediated by verbal ability level and not diagnostic status per se. Theoretical implications and alternative explanations are discussed

Answering questions and explaining answers : a study of Finnish-speaking children

“The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com”. Copyright Springer. DOI: 10.1007/s10936-007-9067-6 [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]This research explores, within the framework of Relevance Theory, how children’s ability to answer questions and explain their answers develops between the ages of 3 and 9 years. Two hundred and ten normally developing Finnish-speaking children participated in this study. The children were asked questions requiring processing of inferential meanings and routines, and were asked to explain their correct answers to elicit understanding about their awareness of how they had derived the answers from the context. The results indicated that the number of correct answers increased rapidly between the ages of 3 years and 4–5 years. Familiarity of context had a significant effect on young children’s ability to answer questions. Becoming aware of the information used in inferencing developed gradually over time between the ages of 3 and 9. Analysis of the children’s incorrect answers and explanations showed that, as children develop, their unsophisticated answer strategies diminish and they increasingly utilize context even in incorrect answers and explanations.Peer reviewe