Week 3: Developmental wider reading

Theory of Mind

• Astington (1994)
• - suggests sometime between the ages of two and five, children begin to have insights into their own mental life and those of others.
• - They begin to understand mental representation—that there is a difference between thoughts in the mind and things in the world, between thinking about eating a cookie and eating a cookie.
• - This breakthrough reflects their emerging capacity to infer other people’s thoughts, wants, feelings, and perceptions from words and actions

The role of play

• Astington & Jenkins (1995)
• - found the frequency of joint proposals e.g. you stay in my arms and of role assignments in the course of pretend play e.g. you be mummy are correlated with theory of mind tasks
• - Therefore it is not only language that contributes to competence in theory of mind tasks but pretend play is also correlated with performance in these tasks
• Schwebel et al (1999)
• - children were observed during naturalistic, spontaneous play on 3 independent occasions and tested on their ability to differentiate appearance and reality and to understand false belief
• - They found children who displayed more jointly constructed pretence in their play better distinguished the apparent and real identity of visually deceptive objects
• - Solitary play was not as strongly associated with theory of mind ability

Biological and environmental factors on theory of mind

• Hughes, C. (2005)
• - looked at twin studies conducted at 2 different stages of development
• - In both studies they found a strong correlation between general verbal ability and theory of mind
• - However, the first study, with a sample of 3 year old twins, showed a large influence of genetic factors on theory of mind with these having little overlap with genetic factors influencing verbal ability
• - The second study revealed a substantial environmental influence on theory of mind. This was accounted for by shared environment and socioeconomic status
• - They concluded there may be developmental change in the relative impact of genetic and environmental factors on individual differences in theory of mind

Autism and theory of mind

• Baron-Cohen et al (1997)
• It is suggested autistic individuals don't have a theory of mind but previous studies have shown a subgroup of people with autism or Asperger syndrome who pass second order tests of theory of mind
• - However these tests have a ceiling in developmental terms corresponding to a mental age of about 6 years old
• - reports the performance of very high functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome on an adult test if theory of mind ability
• - the task involved looking at photographs and inferring the mental state of that person just from their eyes
• - Relative to age-matched normal controls, those with autism were significantly impaired on this task
• -They were also impaired on the Happe's strange stories task

Causes of autism- the environment

• Volk et al (2011)
• - found children living near a freeway at birth were twice as likely to develop autism
• Volk et al (2013)
• - found there was an increased risk of autism associated with exposure to traffic related air pollution and regional air pollutants
• Volk et al (2014)
• - found children whose genetic make up causes them to be more susceptible to the health effects of high levels of air pollution showed the highest risk of autism

Slide 6

• Astington, J. W. (1994). The Child's Discovery of Mind. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674116429
• Jenkins, Jennifer M. and Wilde Astington, Janet (2000) "Theory of Mind and Social Behavior: Causal Models Tested in a Longitudinal Study," Merrill-Palmer Quarterly: Vol. 46: Iss. 2, Article 3.
• Available at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/mpq/vol46/iss2/3
• Schwebel, D. C. Rosen, C. S. & Singer, J. L. (1999). Preschoolers Pretend play and theory of mind: The role of jointly constructed presence. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/026151099165320/full
• Hughes, C. (2005). Genetic and Environmental Influences on Individual Differences
• in Language and Theory of Mind: Common or Distinct?
• Why language mattersfor Theory of Mind. http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195159912.001.0001/acprof-9780195159912...
• Baron-Cohen, S. Jolliffe, T. Mortimore, C. & Robertson, M. (1997). Another advanced Test of Theory of Mind: Evidence from Very High Functioning Adults with Autism or Asperger Syndrome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01599.x/full
• Volk, HE. Hertz-Picciotto, I. Delwiche, L. Lurmann, F. & McConnell, R. (2011). Residential proximity to freeways and autism in the CHARGE study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21156395
• Volk, HE. Lurmann, F. Penfold, B. Hertz-Picciotto, I. & McConnell, R. (2013). Traffic-related air pollution, particulate matter and autism. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23404082
• Volk, HE. Kerin, T. Lurmann, F. Hertz,Picciotto, I. McConnell, R. & Campbell, DB. (2014). Autism spectrum disorder: interaction of air pollution with the MET receptor tyrosine kinase gene. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24240654