Brief report: how far can people with autism go in developing a theory of mind?

Autism is a disorder characterized by severe impairments in social and communicative development, and by abnormalities in flexible behavior and imaginative thinking (American Psychiatric Association, 1987). In addition, these symptoms often have an onset in the first 3 years of life. The social and communicative abnormalities have recently been conceptualized as the result of abnormalities in the development of a "theory of mind" (Baron-Cohen, 1990, 1991a; Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985; BaronCohen, Tager-Flusberg, and Cohen, 1993), that is, in the ability to appreciate the existence of subjective, mental states (such as beliefs, desires, and intentions) and the explanatory role these can play in making sense of people's behavior. On tests that tap this ability, at simple levels, 3to 4-year-old normal children and children without autism but with mental handicap demonstrate remarkable competence, while children with autism (with mental ages higher than this) consistently fail (Baron-Cohen, 1989a, 1989b, 1991b; Baron-Cohen et al., 1985, 1986; Charman & Baron-Cohen, 1992; Leekam & Perner, 1991; Leslie and Frith, 1988; Leslie & Thaiss, 1992; Perner, Frith, Leslie, & Leekam, 1989; Reed & Peterson, 1990). Furthermore, this cognitive deficit correlates with abnormalities in social behavior (Siddons, Happ6, Risq, Whyte, & Frith, 1990), and pragmatic competence in communication (Eisenmajer & Prior, 1991).