Mechanical, behavioural and Intentional understanding of picture stories in autistic children

• DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-835x.1986.tb01003.x
• Publication Date: 2011-07-12T12:08:46Z
• Authors: Simon Baron‐Cohen; Alan M. Leslie; Uta Frith
• Keywords: 05 social sciences; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences

High‐ability autistic children were compared with low‐ability Down's syndrome and clinically normal preschool on a picture sequencing task. When the sequences could be understood in terms of causal‐mechanical or simply descriptive‐behavioural criteria, at least as good controls often showed superior performance. However, that evoked understanding psychological‐Intentional performed much worse than others. This pattern was also seen language used by narrating stories afterwards. In contrast to controls, causal behavioural language, but hardly ever mental state language. experiment confirms extends previous study ours which tested hypothesis specific cognitive deficit apparently prevents development ‘theory mind’ child.