TY - JOUR
T1 - Do Rett syndrome persons possess Theory of Mind?
Some evidence from not-treated girls.
AU - Castelli, Ilaria
AU - Antonietti, Alessandro
AU - Fabio, Rosa Angela
AU - Lucchini, Barbara
AU - Marchetti, Antonella
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - The aim of this research paper is to investigate Theory of Mind (ToM) capacities
with Rett Syndrome (RS), which is similar to autism yet with more
significant impairments. RS patients can best be described as hardly ever
advancing past the sensorimotor stage, or the period described by Piaget
between birth and eighteen months during which an infant's knowledge of
the world is limited to sensory perceptions and motor activities with behaviours
that consist of simple motor responses caused by sensory stimuli.
Nevertheless, single-case studies have shown that RS patients can develop
a mentalistic understanding of others if properly trained. To further advance
this finding, non-trained RS female children completed a false belief
task appositely devised with a non-verbal answering mode familiar to RS
girls. Results show that RS girls are better on this type of false belief task
than a control group of autistic children, whose deficit in ToM understanding
is well-documented in literature. Our findings, though preliminary,
may be a first step towards a better understanding of the differences between
RS and autism in mental state reasoning, opening new topics of research
and intervention in ToM with severe clinical conditions.
AB - The aim of this research paper is to investigate Theory of Mind (ToM) capacities
with Rett Syndrome (RS), which is similar to autism yet with more
significant impairments. RS patients can best be described as hardly ever
advancing past the sensorimotor stage, or the period described by Piaget
between birth and eighteen months during which an infant's knowledge of
the world is limited to sensory perceptions and motor activities with behaviours
that consist of simple motor responses caused by sensory stimuli.
Nevertheless, single-case studies have shown that RS patients can develop
a mentalistic understanding of others if properly trained. To further advance
this finding, non-trained RS female children completed a false belief
task appositely devised with a non-verbal answering mode familiar to RS
girls. Results show that RS girls are better on this type of false belief task
than a control group of autistic children, whose deficit in ToM understanding
is well-documented in literature. Our findings, though preliminary,
may be a first step towards a better understanding of the differences between
RS and autism in mental state reasoning, opening new topics of research
and intervention in ToM with severe clinical conditions.
KW - Rett syndrome
KW - autism
KW - theory of mind
KW - Rett syndrome
KW - autism
KW - theory of mind
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10807/51314
M3 - Article
SN - 2035-5963
SP - 157
EP - 168
JO - Life Span and Disability
JF - Life Span and Disability
ER -