Poster #56 - Development of ToM in Autistic Youth: The potential impact of language

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

Theory of Mind (ToM) includes the ability to attribute mental states (e.g., “happy”, “confused”) to oneself and others (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). Typically developing (TD) children demonstrate high performance on ToM tasks, while children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may encounter difficulties with ToM (Peterson et al., 2005). The role of language in ToM development is unclear, as Perner et al.(1998) claimed that school-age children’s language levels did not impact their ToM ability but did not formally assess language; in contrast, De Villiers and Pyers (2002) reported relationships between ToM and complex syntax. We explore relationships between ToM and standardized measures that assess overall language and cognitive functioning in autistic and TD teenagers.

Participants included 15 autistic (Mage=15.6, SD=3.04) and 17 TD (Mage=14.6, SD=2.94) teens. The ADOS-2 (Lord et al., 2012) confirmed ASD diagnosis. Subscales of the CELF-5 (Wiig et al., 2013) assessed language functioning, with raw scores on Word Classes and Semantic Relationships yielding a Semantic Score, and raw scores on Formulated Sentences and Recalling Sentences yielding a Syntactic Score. The DAS-II (Elliott, 2007) assessed nonverbal cognitive functioning (Table 1). Participants completed two ToM tasks. ToM1 (Peterson et al., 2012) consisted of tasks investigating understanding of desires, beliefs, knowledge access, false belief, hidden emotion, and sarcasm. Scores were calculated on a 1-7 scale. ToM2 involved two second-order false belief tasks that evaluated the ability to hold a false belief about someone else’s belief. Scores were calculated on a scale of 1-3 per task, yielding a total score between 1 and 6.

The TD group (MToM1=6.65, SD=.493) scored higher on the ToM1 tasks than the ASD group (MToM1=4.71, SD=1.816; t(14.58)=-3.867, p<.001 ), as well as on the ToM2 tasks (TD: MToM2=5.88, SD=.332; ASD: MToM2=3.58, SD=2.021; t(11.42)=-3.90, p=.001). Within the ASD group, significant positive correlations emerged between ToM1 and ToM2 scores and Semantic scores (r=.853, p<.001; r=.778, p<.001, respectively; Figure 1a) as well as Syntactic scores (r =.873 p<.001; r=.724, p =.008, respectively; Figure 1b). Additional significant correlations emerged between DAS raw scores and both ToM1 (r =.639, p<.001) and ToM2 (r=.639, p<.001) scores in the ASD group. When DAS scores were partialed out, ToM1 scores remained significantly correlated with CELF scores (r=.825, p=.003). Within the TD group, we only observed a significant positive correlation between ToM1 scores and CELF Semantic scores (r =.541, p =.025; Figure 1a).

Findings from this study suggest that ToM is strongly related to both language and cognitive functioning, which is consistent with De Villiers et al. (2002); while the ToM1 questions have a unique language component, the ToM2 questions involve overlapping language and cognitive functions. Future analyses will investigate the degree to which other factors, including parent-teen interactions and narrative storytelling variables, provide more targeted correlates to ToM abilities.

Authors

• Jaydel Hernandez, University of Connecticut
  Presenting Author

• Grace Audrey Corrigan, University of Connecticut

• Letitia R Naigles, University of Connecticut