Theory of mind: a comparison of children with autism spectrum disorders and typically developing Bangla speaking children.

Abstract

―Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to recognize other people‘s mental states and to understand that people‘s behavior is influenced by their emotions, beliefs and desires‖. Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have severe problem in theory of mind ability; for this reason they face social, communicative and imaginative problem. Previous studies have found that Autism Spectrum Disorder‘s children have severe deficit in Theory of Mind development. Using False belief Battery, the aims of this study were to find out developmental of ToM in typically developing Bangla speaking children and ASD children aged 4-8 years. This is a cross sectional study where 80 samples were purposively assigned. Those samples were divided in typical and ASD group and 40 samples was each group. Bangla translated false belief battery script was used for data collection. The result showed that children with ASD performed consistently more poorly on the ToM tasks than typically developing children. Furthermore, ToM ability in the current typically developing sample was not similar with universal development. Bangladeshi children development slows than children from other countries on the ToM, which may be due to cultural factors. Understanding of false belief (Theory of Mind) difference between typical and ASD children were significant and there is no significant difference in development of Theory of mind between girls and boys. Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, false belief understanding, theory of mind