Time for my first post in a very long time. My mental health has been all over the place for a while, and everything has been put off to let it recover. I finally feel like I’m in a good enough place to start writing again, so here we are.
Today’s topic is quite simple, and very relevant to my life, as my A-level examinations require me to understand and evaluate the Theory of Mind as an “explanation for Autism” – a statement I very much disagree with, but I digress.
Here’s the basics before we start:
The theory of mind was originally hypothesised by Wimmer and Permer, who asked young children to identify where a child called Maxi would look for chocolate if he had left it in one place and his mother had moved it.
The theory of mind is the ability to perceive and understand other people’s thoughts and emotions, and in Neurotypical development, it should begin to appear around 4-6 years old. Prior to its development, a child would fail a false belief task, being unable to see how Maxi would not KNOW the chocolate has been moved and would therefore check the place he left it instead of the place it is, whereas once it has developed, the child would be able to figure out his perspective.
Following their initial research, a man called Simon Baron-Cohen began to research the theory of mind, and hypothesised that it was connected to Autism. His hypothesis explained that (though very much not agreed with and extremely controversial now) Autism was caused by a lack of development of Theory of Mind in children. He chose to test this with the Sally-Anne task.
The Sally-Anne task was a visually-aided version of a false belief test. Instead of just text describing the scenario, there were images of two dolls named Sally and Anne acting out the scenario. The Sally-Anne task asked children the following:
There are two dolls, one named Sally, and the other named Anne. Sally has a marble, which she puts away into her basket, before leaving. Anne decides while Sally is gone to move the marble to her box instead. When Sally returns, where will she look for the marble?
During this process, the child being tested is constantly asked control questions to make sure there wasn’t a lack of understanding. Examples are “what are the dolls names? Who is Sally? Who is Anne? Where is the marble? (Pre-box) Where is the marble? (Post-box), etc.”
His findings showed that:
Approximately 80% of Neurotypical children were able to correctly identify where Sally would look first (her basket) by age 6
Approximately 80% of children with Down syndrome would correctly identify where she would look by age 6
Approximately 20% of Autistic children would correctly identify where she would look by age 6.
He therefore concluded that Autism is caused by a lack of Theory of Mind.
There are a few problems with his research, both scientifically and socially.
Let’s start with socially:
Simon Baron-Cohen’s research failed to handle the impact that it would cause by claiming Autistic people lack a Theory of Mind. By saying this, a stereotype was created which let people believe that Autistic people could not feel nor perceive emotions, nor relate to others. It has been an incredibly harmful stereotype which persists to this day, even though his research is often regarded as incorrect.
Baron-Cohen himself described Theory of Mind as being the “core deficit” of Autistic development, firstly implying that lacking it would be a severe problem, and secondly only focusing on the problems of Autistic development and what’s “wrong” with Autistic children, instead of focusing on the children themselves and the positives to their development, and how to properly help them.
The final thing he socially did wrong was generalise. He took a relatively small sample from an extremely diverse group of people, and generalised his findings from them onto every Autistic person.
Now let’s focus on where his study is scientifically incorrect:
Baron-Cohen claims that Autism is caused by a lack of Theory of Mind, yet by age 7, the number of Autistic children who completed the task correctly was approximately even with the number of Neurotypical and Down syndrome children. This implies delayed development of a Theory of Mind, instead of a lack of it, invalidating Baron-Cohen’s claim that ToM was the primary deficit and cause of Autism.
Baron-Cohen’s study has very little validity behind it, with no other studies mirroring and validating his results. As well as this, his sample sizes were extremely small, with only 61 children taking part, 20 of whom were Autistic. This means that he expects his research of 20 children from an extremely diverse group of people to be generalizable to all people in that group.
Finally, Baron-Cohen’s research and hypothesis imply that Autism is only a childhood condition, especially with the later research discovering that by age 7 the gap had closed. Autism is very much not a childhood-only condition and remains a core part of a person from birth to death.
Now as this post is also a part of my A-level revision, I am required to add the one positive to his study, which demonstrated SOMEWHAT a decent marker for Neurotypical development, allowing people to easier identify when a young child may need some extra support.
I personally still do not agree with that, but as I am planning to use this post as revision material, I am required to include it just in case.
Continuing on, after Baron-Cohen was done with his ToM research, he continued on to make Autism stereotypes and generally make the lives of Autistic people worse.
He has:
- Claimed that Autistic people can only be male (extreme male brain theory)
- Worked closely with Autism Speaks and its related groups (I’ve spoken many times on the problems with AS)
- Has led the Spectrum10K study that began in 2021 (I’ve made two posts regarding this which I highly recommend reading if you’d like to know more on that)
- Has been involved in groups actively searching to cure/prevent Autism
- And much, MUCH, more.
To end this post I want to specifically call out the exam board. AQA – this is not good enough. For the ONE mention of Autism to be Baron-Cohen’s theory of mind study is frankly offensive. The scientific community has never been friendly towards Autistic people, but Baron-Cohen is the exact example of what NOT to do. He should not be the focus around, let alone the ONLY MENTION of Autism in your specification.
I do not know if/how the other exam boards cover Autism in their A-level specifications, but AQA, this is not good enough. I do not yet know how I will answer a question on defending the ToM study if it is asked in my A-levels this year, other than to not answer it, or write something more along this line on the problems instead.
Thank you all for reading, I’ll be trying to get back to my usual setup. For Autism acceptance month 2022 I plan to do a post regarding masking, one I haven’t followed up on since the first time I initially mentioned it back in August 2021.
I also plan to do a larger number of posts through April, and then back to my regular monthly posts from May.
This is of course all subject to change as my real life situation and my mental health changes, but I hope to keep to this schedule I have set.
That’s all for this post.
- Josh.
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