Does theory of mind performance differ in children with early‐onset and regressive autism?

A deficit in theory of mind (ToM), or the ability to infer the mental states of others, has been implicated as one of the major characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); however, little attention has been devoted to possible differences in ToM ability within ASD. The current study examined ToM performance in children with early-onset autism and regressive autism in comparison to typically developing children. Results indicated that children in the regressive autism group performed significantly better than the early-onset autism group on the non-verbal appearance-reality task. Additionally, Fisher's exact tests indicated a pattern of lowest scores in the early-onset group and highest scores in the typically developing group, whereas the regressive autism group tended to score in between the early-onset and typically developing groups. The apparent heterogeneity in ToM performance within ASD could account for the lack of universality in ToM ability found in previous studies.     

聋儿的心理理论发展特点及影响因素

目前,探究聋儿的心理理论（TheoryofMind,ToM）发展特点多从三个方面进行：一是分析聋儿与正常儿童及自闭症儿童ToM水平的差异;二是比较聋父母聋儿、口语聋儿及正常父母聋儿的ToM发展差异;三是分析聋儿对不同心理状态的理解水平。此外,对聋儿ToM发展影响因素的讨论,多是从聋儿交往、语言、训练等角度进行的     

THE IMPACT OF AUDITION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF VISUAL ATTENTION

Interactions between audition and vision were investigated in two experiments In the first experiment, school-age hearing children, deaf children with cochlear implants, and deaf children without implants participated in a task in which they were to respond to some visual signals and not others This task did not involve sound at all Deaf children without implants performed much more poorly than hearing children Deaf children with cochlear implants performed considerably better than deaf children without implants The second experiment employed a longitudinal design and showed that the rate of development in visual selective attention was faster for deaf children with cochlear implants than deaf children without implants Moreover, the gams were rapid–occurring within 2 years post-implant surgery The results suggest that a history of experience with sounds matters in the development of visual attention The results are discussed in terms of multimodal developmental processes     

Representing Inner Worlds: Theory of Mind in Autistic, Deaf, and Normal Hearing Children

The purpose of the study reported here was to examine the degree to which delays or deficits in developing a theory of mind are specific to children with autism or extend to other groups of atypical children with varying conversational experience and awareness. The performance of deaf children from a variety of conversational backgrounds was compared with that of autistic and normal hearing children on a range of tasks requiring representation of others' mental states. Native signers, oral deaf children, and normal hearing children scored similarly, and their performance exceeded that shown by signing deaf children from hearing families and children with autism. The latter two groups did not differ significantly from each other. These results point to an interplay among biology, conversation, and culture in the development of a theory of mind.     

Language access and theory of mind reasoning: evidence from deaf children in bilingual and oralist environments

This investigation examined whether access to sign language as a medium for instruction influences theory of mind (ToM) reasoning in deaf children with similar home language environments. Experiment 1 involved 97 deaf Italian children ages 4-12 years: 56 were from deaf families and had LIS (Italian Sign Language) as their native language, and 41 had acquired LIS as late signers following contact with signers outside their hearing families. Children receiving bimodal/bilingual instruction in LIS together with Sign-Supported and spoken Italian significantly outperformed children in oralist schools in which communication was in Italian and often relied on lipreading. Experiment 2 involved 61 deaf children in Estonia and Sweden ages 6-16 years. On a wide variety of ToM tasks, bilingually instructed native signers in Estonian Sign Language and spoken Estonian succeeded at a level similar to age-matched hearing children. They outperformed bilingually instructed late signers and native signers attending oralist schools. Particularly for native signers, access to sign language in a bilingual environment may facilitate conversational exchanges that promote the expression of ToM by enabling children to monitor others' mental states effectively.     

Language development in profoundly deaf children with cochlear implants

Although cochlear implants improve the ability of profoundly deaf children to understand speech, critics claim that the published literature does not document even a single case of a child who has developed a linguistic system based on input from an implant. Thus, it is of clinical and scientific importance to determine whether cochlear implants facilitate the development of English language skills. The English language skills of prelingually deaf children with cochlear implants were measured before and after implantation. We found that the rate of language development after implantation exceeded that expected from unimplanted deaf children ( p < .001) and was similar to that of children with normal hearing. Despite a large amount of individual variability, the best performers in the implanted group seem to be developing an oral linguistic system based largely on auditory input obtained from a cochlear implant.     

Implicit sequence learning in deaf children with cochlear implants

Deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) represent an intriguing opportunity to study neurocognitive plasticity and reorganization when sound is introduced following a period of auditory deprivation early in development. Although it is common to consider deafness as affecting hearing alone, it may be the case that auditory deprivation leads to more global changes in neurocognitive function. In this paper, we investigate implicit sequence learning abilities in deaf children with CIs using a novel task that measured learning through improvement to immediate serial recall for statistically consistent visual sequences. The results demonstrated two key findings. First, the deaf children with CIs showed disturbances in their visual sequence learning abilities relative to the typically developing normal-hearing children. Second, sequence learning was significantly correlated with a standardized measure of language outcome in the CI children. These findings suggest that a period of auditory deprivation has secondary effects related to general sequencing deficits, and that disturbances in sequence learning may at least partially explain why some deaf children still struggle with language following cochlear implantation.     

Word learning in deaf children with cochlear implants: effects of early auditory experience

Word-learning skills were tested in normal-hearing 12- to 40-month-olds and in deaf 22- to 40-month-olds 12 to 18 months after cochlear implantation. Using the Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm (IPLP), children were tested for their ability to learn two novel-word/novel-object pairings. Normal-hearing children demonstrated learning on this task at approximately 18 months of age and older. For deaf children, performance on this task was significantly correlated with early auditory experience: Children whose cochlear implants were switched on by 14 months of age or who had relatively more hearing before implantation demonstrated learning in this task, but later implanted profoundly deaf children did not. Performance on this task also correlated with later measures of vocabulary size. Taken together, these findings suggest that early auditory experience facilitates word learning and that the IPLP may be useful for identifying children who may be at high risk for poor vocabulary development.     

Deaf and hearing children: a comparison of peripheral vision development

This study investigated peripheral vision (at least 30° eccentric to fixation) development in profoundly deaf children without cochlear implantation, and compared this to age-matched hearing controls as well as to deaf and hearing adult data. Deaf and hearing children between the ages of 5 and 15 years were assessed using a new, specifically paediatric designed method of static perimetry. The deaf group (N = 25) were 14 females and 11 males, mean age 9.92 years (range 5-15 years). The hearing group (N = 64) were 34 females, 30 males, mean age 9.13 years (range 5-15 years). All participants had good visual acuity in both eyes (< 0.200 LogMAR). Accuracy of detection and reaction time to briefly presented LED stimuli of three light intensities, at eccentricities between 30° and 85° were measured while fixation was maintained to a central target. The study found reduced peripheral vision in deaf children between 5 and 10 years of age. Deaf children (aged 5-10 years) showed slower reaction times to all stimuli and reduced ability to detect and accurately report dim stimuli in the far periphery. Deaf children performed equally to hearing children aged 11-12 years. Deaf adolescents aged 13-15 years demonstrated faster reaction times to all peripheral stimuli in comparison to hearing controls. Adolescent results were consistent with deaf and hearing adult performances wherein deaf adults also showed significantly faster reaction times than hearing controls. Peripheral vision performance on this task was found to reach adult-like levels of maturity in deaf and hearing children, both in reaction time and accuracy of detection at the age of 11-12 years.     

Reasoning bias for the recall of one's own beliefs in a Smarties task for adults

While many studies in the theory of mind (ToM) literature have investigated how we understand others' mental states, few have explored the mechanism by which we reflect on our own mental states. This study examined how adults reflect on their own and others' mental states within the same ToM task. To do so, we modified the Smarties task, one of the traditional ToM tasks for children. The results showed that adult participants were biased by outcome knowledge when recalling their false belief and that the participants who overestimated their false belief also overestimated the mental states of a naive other. These results were analogous to young children's failure in the Smarties task. Considering the current findings, we discuss possible cognitive processes that are common across children and adults when reflecting on their own mental states and the mental states of others.     

自闭症儿童非言语错误信念任务的实验研究

心理理论是指对自己和他人心理状态(如需要、信念、意图、动机、感觉等)的认识,并由此对相应行为做出因果性的预测和解释。国内外心理理论研究较多关注一般儿童的心理理论能力,而对自闭症儿童领域的心理理论的研究不够。本研究在原有的错误信念任务的基础上,对任务进行完全“非言语”改进,以意外内容任务为主要测试内容,将智力落后儿童作为对照组纳入到实验当中,进一步探索自闭症儿童心理理论发展情况。研究结果表明：改编后的非言语意外内容任务适用于自闭症和智力落后儿童;包括低言语能力个体在内的所有自闭症儿童的心理理论能力显著低于智力落后儿童;智力落后儿童的心理理论能力与以往研究结果相一致;相对于智力落后儿童,自闭症儿童在物品转移和调换的注意方面存在更大障碍。     

Development of social-cognitive and communication skills in children born deaf

Central to the interface of social-cognitive and communicative development is the growth of a theory of mind (ToM). ToM is mastered by most hearing children and deaf children of signing deaf parents by the age of 5 or 6 but is often seriously delayed in deaf children of hearing parents. This paper reviews recently published research on deaf children's ToM development and presents an original study consisting of eight longitudinal case histories that collectively map late-signing deaf children's ToM performance from 44 to 158 months of age. While five tentative conclusions can be posited from the collective research so far, further investigation of each of these possibilities is clearly needed.     

听障儿童认知抑制控制的脑电特点

通过认知抑制控制的Stroop范式运用事件相关电位考察听障儿童和对照组儿童在认知抑制控制方面的行为特点以及脑内时程特点。行为结果显示：（1）两类被试在一致条件下认知抑制控制的正确率显著高于不一致条件,反应时显著快于不一致条件,表现出冲突效应;（2）组间结果显示,听障儿童的认知抑制控制正确率显著低于对照组儿童,反应时上差异不显著。脑电结果显示：（1）不一致条件在N450上的负激活显著高于一致条件,听障儿童比对照组儿童诱发了更负的N450波幅;（2）不一致条件在SP上的正激活显著高于一致条件,两类被试在SP上差异不显著。结果提示听障儿童在认知抑制控制过程中的冲突监测功能存在障碍,这是由于冲突监测过程中注意分配能力受损所致。     

From fancy to reason: Scaling deaf and hearing children's understanding of theory of mind and pretence

We examined deaf and hearing children's progression of steps in theory of mind (ToM) development including their understanding of social pretending. Ninety‐three children (33 deaf; 60 hearing) aged 3–13 years were tested on a set of six closely matched ToM tasks. Results showed that deaf children were delayed substantially behind hearing children in understanding pretending, false belief (FB) and other ToM concepts, in line with their delayed uptake of social pretend (SP) play. By using a scaling methodology, we confirmed previous evidence of a consistent five‐step developmental progression for both groups. Moreover, by including social pretence understanding, both deaf and hearing children's ToM sequences were shown to extend reliably to six sequential developmental steps. Finally and focally, even though both groups' sequences were six steps long, the placement of pretence relative to other ToM milestones varied with hearing status. Deaf children understood social pretending at an earlier step in the ToM sequence than hearing children, albeit at a later chronological age. Theoretically, the findings are relevant to questions about how universal developmental progressions come together along with culturally distinctive inputs and biological factors (such as hearing loss) to set the pace for ToM development.     

孤独症个体的公平决策：心理理论和自我/他人情绪识别的作用

研究通过最后通牒任务,考查孤独症儿童在公平任务中的决策,以及心理理论和识别自我/他人情绪对决策的影响。29名孤独症儿童和三组对照组儿童参加实验结果发现,孤独症儿童在任务中面对不同分配比例的接受率（2:8、3:7）与对照组之间存在显著差异。心理理论能力和自我情绪识别都与决策存在相关：当处于不公平的情况下（1:9、2:8、3:7）,通过心理理论任务的孤独症儿童才会拒绝接受不公平分配,儿童也会感觉到不高兴并且做出拒绝的决定。     

Cochlear implants in young children

The cochlear implant is best characterized as a device that provides access to the sound environment. The device enables the hearing pathway to respond to environmental and speech sounds, providing informational cues from the surroundings and from others that may escape visual detection. As the developmental effects of a profound hearing loss are multiple, cochlear implants have been applied to ever younger children in an attempt to promote a more normal level of developmental learning through audition. In deafness, transducer elements of the inner ear fail to trigger auditory nerve afferent nerves in the presence of sound input. However, large reserves of afferent fibers exist even in the auditory nerve of a profoundly deaf patient. Furthermore, these nerve fibers retain the ability to respond to prosthetic activation. Through developmental learning in the early, formative years, auditory centers of the brain appear capable of processing information from the implant to provide speech comprehension and oral language development. Multichannel implants have replaced original single channel designs. multichannel devices enable larger percentages of recipients to recognize the spoken word without visual cues because they provide spectral information in addition to temporal and intensity cues. Testing under conditions of auditory (implant)-only input reveals significant open-set speech understanding capabilities in more than 75% of children after three years of device use. The benefit provided by implants may vary with a number of conditions including: hearing history, age of deafness onset, age at implantation, etiology of deafness, linguistic abilities, and the presence of a motivated system of support of oral language development. Patient variables should be given individual consideration in judging candidacy for a cochlear implant and in planning rehabilitative and education services after surgery and activation of the device.     

Children with autism can track others' beliefs in a competitive game

Theory of mind (ToM) development, assessed via ‘litmus’ false belief tests, is severely delayed in autism, but the standard testing procedure may underestimate these children's genuine understanding. To explore this, we developed a novel test involving competition to win a reward as the motive for tracking other players' beliefs (the ‘Dot‐Midge task’). Ninety‐six children, including 23 with autism (mean age: 10.36 years), 50 typically developing 4‐year‐olds (mean age: 4.40) and 23 typically developing 3‐year‐olds (mean age: 3.59) took a standard ‘Sally‐Ann’ false belief test, the Dot‐Midge task (which was closely matched to the Sally‐Ann task procedure) and a norm‐referenced verbal ability test. Results revealed that, of the children with autism, 74% passed the Dot‐Midge task, yet only 13% passed the standard Sally‐Ann procedure. A similar pattern of performance was observed in the older, but not the younger, typically developing control groups. This finding demonstrates that many children with autism who fail motivationally barren standard false belief tests can spontaneously use ToM to track their social partners’ beliefs in the context of a competitive game.     

The relationship between theory of mind and metaphor: Evidence from children with language impairment and autistic spectrum disorder

Happé (1993) proposed that theory of mind (ToM) understanding was necessary for comprehension of metaphorical expressions. The current study investigated the role of both ToM and language ability in metaphor understanding. Ninety‐four children aged 8–15 years with communication impairments were grouped according to language ability and autistic symptomatology in the first instance, and then according to ToM performance. Their performance on a metaphor task was compared to 34 typically developing age‐matched peers. These analyses showed that only children with language impairment, with or without concurrent autistic features, were impaired on the metaphor task. Furthermore, possession of first‐order ToM skills did not ensure metaphor comprehension. Instead, semantic ability was a stronger predictor of performance on the metaphor task. These results are considered with reference to the view that ToM understanding is necessary for the comprehension of metaphor.     

Deafness and mother–child interaction: Scaffolded instruction and the learning of problem-solving skills

This study examines the effects of maternal teaching style on the developing problem-solving abilities of deaf and hearing pre-school children. Mothers and children from three matched groups, hearing mother-deaf child, hearing mother-hearing child, and deaf mother-deaf child, were videotaped while the mother instructed the child on a block construction task and again when the child attempted the task independently. Dependent measures were maternal instructional style and child performance. The mothers in the deaf mother-deaf child and hearing mother-hearing child dyads used appropriate scaffolding behaviour and their children were more likely to exhibit adept and independent problem-solving abilities than the deaf children of hearing mothers. The findings of this study support Vygotsky's notion of the ‘zone of proximal development’ and the concept of adult scaffolding of children's learning.     

听障者语音编码的研究范式述评

对于健听者而言,语音编码在阅读中具有重要作用。听障者在阅读中是否存在语音编码？对于拼音文字而言,这个问题目前国际上存在很大的争议。中国听障者在阅读中是否使用了语音编码也逐渐开始受到重视。为了给国内研究听障者语音编码的学者提供参考,本文介绍了考察听障者语音编码研究中常用的研究范式,包括实验程序、逻辑及相应的研究成果。最后,对今后我国听障者语音编码的研究进行了展望。