Theory of Mind it relates to Autism

Theory of Mind it relates to Autism

Introduction

The term autism was originally introduced by the psychiatrist Kanner to describe a syndrome (a collection of symptoms) he observed in some of his child patients. Autistic children typically have difficulties in social interaction and in language and non-verbal communication, and have a restricted range of activities and interests. Symptoms in all these areas appear before 36 months of age. Some autistic children have additional cognitive difficulties and many are intellectually impaired. Some autistic children have exceptional gifts, termed islets of ability, in one particular area, such as music or art. In most cases autism is a life-long condition, although the patterns of difficulties may change or become less severe as children grow up.

There have been many explanations for the origins of autism and attempts have been made to identify a core deficit which can account for the symptoms of autism.

The term 'theory of mind' in cognitive psychology allows individuals to describe and understanding of other individual's metal state about their beliefs or thoughts no individual can be certain what another individual is thinking but can have a good understand in what they may believe what they are thinking or about their thoughts (Baron-Cohen,2008). Theory of mind is exclusive to humans and allows humans to have a better understanding about the social world around and allows individuals to interact with other individuals in appropriate way (Baron-Cohen, 2008)

Discussion

Autism is a developmental disorder which occurs in the first 2 years of the Childs life and can affect approximately four in every ten thousand children (Gross, 2010). The disorder is more four times more likely for a boy to have the disorder than a girl (Banyard and Grayson, 2011). An individual who has the disorder may find it hard to interact with another individuals and find it hard to understand what they are saying or understand the emotion of behaviour from another individual that also cannot understand their 'inner self' and the other individuals thoughts and believes. Early signs of autism in a child cannot keep eye-to eye contact with another individual for a long period of time (Gross, 2010). Also they cannot spontaneously play with a toy because it may be the fact their disorder cannot let them understand what the toy does. A study took place where individuals where ask to sort out pictures giving to the by category, children with the artistic disorder sorted the pictures out by objects example hat scarf this shows that not all social communication is impaired but they have little understanding of what is being asked of them.

Baron-Cohen et al. (2008) showed some individuals pictures of people's eyes and where giving four different type of words describing emotion this study was allocated to individuals with autism and also individuals without the disorder but show some signs of the autistic disorder. Baron-Cohen et al. (2008) believes that is a 'pure' test of theory of mind and believes that the results from this study ...