Theory of Mind (ToM), Social Skills, Syntax and Vocabulary in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background: Previous research suggesting false belief (FB) understanding is related to social maturity for children with ASD supports the ToM hypothesis of autism. There are however inconsistencies in this research with not all individuals passing FB scoring higher than failers on social skills (Frith, Happe’ & Siddons, 1994). It has been hypothesised (preserving this theory) that compensatory verbal strategies may be used by some individuals to “hack out” solutions which do not translate into everyday social skills (e.g. Happé, 1995). Supporting this hypothesis receptive vocabulary and syntax have been found to be more highly correlated with FB for individuals with ASD than for those without (Fisher et al., 2005). Research however has not investigated how syntax relates to social skills nor how language and social skills interconnect in relation to broad ToM (e.g. Wellman & Liu, 2004).

Objectives: The current research aimed to fill this gap.

Methods: 22 Australian children (ASD=14, typical= 8) aged 4 through to 13 years took a standard FB battery, a broad ToM scale (Wellman & Liu, 2004), PPVT-III, Raven’s Matrices and TROG-R. Parents and teachers rated the children on two social skills tests previously shown to relate to ToM (Frith et al., 1994; Peterson, Slaughter & Paynter, 2007).

Results: Both the parent’s and teacher’s ratings of social skills correlated with both the broad ToM and standard FB battery for children with ASD but not typical children. In addition vocabulary and syntax were found to be related to both ToM measures for ASD children only.

Conclusions: Vocabulary and syntax appear to be more influential on ToM and social skills for children with ASD. In addition previous findings with FB were replicated and shown to generalise to broad ToM.