Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Children's Theory-of-Mind and Executive-Function Development in Typical and Atypical (ASD) Samples

Background: Previous studies have found differences in children’s performance on theory-of-mind and executive-function tasks across ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ cultures (e.g., Lewis et al., 2009; Shahaeian et al., 2011). However, this body of research has so far been confined to typically-developing (TD) samples. In addition, while the authors of these studies have cited differences in parents’ socialisation priorities as possible reasons for the discrepancies in task performance across cultures, these hypothesised differences have yet to be empirically studied.

Objectives:   The first aim of this exploratory study was to investigate if differences in TD children’s task performance across the ‘East’ (Malaysia) and the ‘West’ (UK) would also be observed in samples of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The second aim was to investigate if there were indeed cross-cultural differences in parents’ beliefs about children’s sociocognitive development, and if these differences were observed in both TD and ASD samples. The third and final aim was to investigate if the links between the children’s task performance and the parents’ beliefs were similar across cultures and across diagnostic groups.

Methods: To this end, a sample of 142 TD (73 Malaysian) preschoolers and a sample of 90 children with ASD (44 Malaysian) aged 4-15 and their parents were recruited. The children in both countries were given a battery of theory-of-mind and executive-function tasks. A parent questionnaire containing a list of 27 behaviours taken from various measures of children’s social competence was distributed to the parents in Malaysia and the UK.  Each item in the questionnaire was related to theory of mind, executive function, or general social competence. Parents were asked to rate how important they thought it was that their children showed the ability to exhibit each behaviour.

Results: The main findings were that, statistically controlling for any differences in relevant background variables (e.g., age, verbal ability, maternal education):

1. The Malaysian TD children outperformed the British TD children on the executive-function tasks, but there were no differences in the children’s performance on the theory-of-mind tasks. There were no cross-cultural differences in the ASD samples’ task performances across the two countries.

2. In the TD samples, there were no cross-cultural differences in the parents’ ratings of the importance of theory-of-mind or executive-function-related behaviours. However, in the ASD samples, the Malaysian parents rated both sets of behaviours as more important than did than the British parents.

3. In the TD samples, the executive-function task and questionnaire data were significantly related, but not the theory-of-mind task and questionnaire data. In the ASD samples, however, there were no significant relationships between the task and questionnaire data.

Conclusions:   Together, these findings highlight the importance of including different diagnostic groups in future research in order to gain a more complete understanding of how child characteristics and social influences interact to impact children’s sociocognitive development.