Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / O termo Teoria da Mente diz respeito à habilidade que os seres humanos adquirem de compreender seus próprios estados mentais e os dos outros e predizer ações e comportamentos dentro de uma interação social. As principais questões da pesquisa em Teoria da Mente são: determinar qual o tipo de conhecimento que sustenta essa habilidade, qual sua origem e desenvolvimento e em que momento se manifesta. (Astington e Gopnik, 1991). Ao levar em consideração que a língua pode ser vista como instrumento da cognição (Spelke, 2003), através da qual o falante adquire suporte para o planejamento de ações, contribuindo para o desempenho de tarefas cognitivas complexas (Corrêa, 2006), de Villiers (2004, 2005, 2007 e subsequentes), no que diz respeito à Teoria da Mente, argumenta que o seu desenvolvimento depende do desenvolvimento linguístico, estando diretamente ligado à aquisição de verbos de estado mental, como pensar, por exemplo, pelo fato de que esses verbos subcategorizam uma sentença encaixada. Para ela, o domínio dessa estrutura possibilita que o raciocínio de crenças falsas da Teoria da Mente seja efetivamente realizado. A presente dissertação tem como objetivo verificar em que medida há uma influência direta e necessária da linguagem para a condução de tarefas de Teoria da Mente. Para tanto, focamos nossa atenção em pessoas que estão, por algum motivo, destituídas parcialmente da capacidade linguística, mas que mantêm intacta a capacidade cognitiva, os afásicos. Por meio de uma pesquisa realizada com dois pacientes afásicos de Broca, selecionados pelos critérios clássicos, procuramos entender se a habilidade de predizer ações está intacta nestes pacientes ou se tal habilidade foi perdida, assim como a linguagem. Para tanto, aplicamos dois testes de crença falsa em Teoria da Mente. O primeiro utilizou-se de suporte verbal, uma narração de eventos e expectativas dos personagens envolvidos. A pergunta-teste foi manipulada em função do grau de complexidade por meio do cruzamento de dois fatores: sentenças simples ou complexas e QU-in situ ou movido. O segundo teste seguiu o padrão não-verbal, sendo constituído de uma sequência de imagens, sendo que o sujeito deveria decidir entre duas últimas imagens apresentadas, aquela que coerentemente finalizava a história. Uma vez que houvesse influência direta da linguagem na condução de tarefas de Teoria da Mente, esperar-se-ia que a dificuldade no teste verbal refletisse o grau de complexidade das questões apresentadas. Adicionalmente, o desempenho no teste não-verbal também deveria ser insatisfatório, dado o comprometimento linguístico apresentado pelos sujeitos testados. Para o primeiro teste, o desempenho dos pacientes foi aleatório e inferior ao do grupo controle, já para o segundo teste, o aproveitamento foi de 100%. Em geral, os resultados sugerem que o raciocínio de crenças falsas em Teoria da Mente é alcançado por esses sujeitos, haja vista o desempenho plenamente satisfatório no teste não-verbal. Os resultados do teste verbal, por outro lado, atestam tão somente a dificuldade linguística característica dessa população. Desse modo, conclui-se que uma vez desenvolvida a habilidade em Teoria da Mente, esta permanece intacta na mente destes pacientes, mesmo que destituídos parcialmente da capacidade linguística / The term Theory of Mind refers to the ability of attributing mental states beliefs, intention, desires, pretending to oneself and others and to predict or explain others behavior on the basis of these beliefs. The main research questions undertaken in the Theory of Mind field are: (i) which kind of knowledge supports this ability; (ii) where it originates from and how it developes; and (iii) when it emerges (Astington e Gopnik, 1991). Assuming that language plays an important role for the development of cognition (Spelke, 2003), as far as it can provide support for action planning, contributing to the performance of complex cognitive tasks (Corrêa, 2006), de Villiers (2004, 2005, 2007 and subsequent work) argues, with regard to the Theory of Mind, that its development depends on language development, since it would be directly related to the acquisition of mental state verbs (think, for example) and the fact that these verbs subcategorize an embedded sentence. According to de Villiers, it is the mastering of such structure which enables a false belief reasoning in Theory of Mind. This dissertation aims at examining the extent to which there is a direct and necessary language influence for the false belief reasoning in Theory of Mind. Therefore, it focuses on aphasics a population who shows impaired language skills but keeps intact cognitive abilities. Two Brocas aphasic patients, selected by classical criteria, are observed in relation to the extent to which their ability to predict others behavior shows to be intact or is disrupted in parallel to their language skills. They are submitted to two false belief tasks. The first one is a verbal task consisting of a short story, depicting characters expectations towards the events. The test question is manipulated as a function of complexity by means of two factors: simple or complex sentences and Wh-in situ or Moved-Wh. The second test is a non-verbal task, consisting of a sequence of images displayed on a laptop screen. The subject task consists of deciding between the two last images shown, the one that consistently ends the story. Considering that there is a direct influence of language on false belief reasoning, it is expected that difficulty in the verbal task reflects the complexity of the test sentences presented. Additionally, the performance in the non-verbal task is also predicted to be unsatisfactory, due to the subjects linguistic impairment, which arguably would not lend the necessary support for this kind of reasoning. The first test results were poorer than the control group results. Second task results were at the ceiling 100% correct responses. In general, the results show, in one hand, that false belief reasoning in Theory of Mind is achieved by aphasics, as the good performance in the non-verbal task assures. On the other hand, the poor performance in the verbal task seems to solely reflect the linguistic impairment that characterizes this population. Thus, it may be argued that once abilities in Theory of Mind are developed, they remain intact, even in the mind of patients who are partially deprived of linguistic abilities

O presente trabalho pretendeu discutir teoricamente e ilustrar com alguns casos clínicos as dificuldades de atribuição de estados mentais de crianças com autismo, estabelecendo uma articulação entre alguns conceitos da epistemologia genética piagetiana, tais como representação e egocentrismo e do constructo da teoria da mente. A teoria da mente tem sido denominada, pelos seus estudiosos, como a capacidade de atribuir estados mentais (crenças, desejos, intensões e emoções) a si e aos outros, no intuito de explicar, interpretar e predizer comportamentos e tem alcançado destaque com o passar dos anos, em relação às pesquisas sobre autismo no cenário internacional. No entanto, algumas divergências entre seus autores resultam em diferentes maneiras de mensurar esta capacidade. Leslie (1987,1988) considera que a teoria da mente já esteja presente nas brincadeiras de faz de conta infantil e no emprego dos termos mentais utilizados por crianças de dois anos de idade. Diferentemente, Perner (1991) advoga que a teoria da mente só é evidente quando a criança tem a capacidade de reconhecer que a mente é um sistema de representações, por volta de quatro a seis anos de idade. Por isso, para este último autor, somente a partir da resolução das tarefas de crença falsa é que se poderia afirmar que a criança apresenta a teoria da mente, pois, assim, significa que esta diferencie entre o subjetivo e o mundo físico. A representação mental e a construção interna do mundo real, feita pela criança, foram assuntos amplamente estudados por Jean Piaget. Piaget (1947) afirma que a criança alcança um nível de representação mental que lhe habilite a diferenciar entre o que é subjetivo do que é objetivo quando supera o egocentrismo, pois enquanto pensar que todos pensam como ela, não encontrará motivos para se conformar às verdades comuns, além de não se interessar pela busca de comprovações lógicas sobre aquilo que afirma. O pensamento egocêntrico, na epistemologia genética piagetiana, é um estágio primitivo do pensamento lógico marcado por três características: predomínio da imagem sobre o conceito, certa inconsciência do pensamento e ausência de lógica. Ancorada na epistemologia genética piagetiana e com base na realização de estudos de casos de duas crianças com autismo e uma criança com desenvolvimento neurotípico, a presente investigação concluiu que os referidos autores da teoria da mente discorrem sobre diferentes estágios desta capacidade. Além disso, por meio de entrevista clínica segundo Piaget, da análise do emprego dos termos mentais e da análise das justificativas de seus participantes em relação à tarefa de crença falsa de Sally e Ann, este estudo depreendeu que a capacidade de atribuir estados mentais ao outro requer o início da superação do egocentrismo, descrito por Piaget. Por isso, crianças com autismo, apesar de poderem empregar termos mentais em seus discursos, geralmente, têm dificuldades de diferenciar entre o subjetivo e o mundo real, apresentando tendência à representação imagética em detrimento da representação conceitual, desinteresse em comprovar o que afirmam e dificuldades em diferenciar o próprio ponto de vista do ponto de vista de outrem / This research intended to discuss theoretically and illustrate with some clinical cases the assignment difficulties of mental states of children with autism, establishing a link between the concepts of mental representation and egocentrism in Piaget\'s genetic epistemology and the theory of mind. The Theory of mind has been defined by their researchers as the ability to attribute mental states (beliefs, desires, intentions and emotions) to onself and others, in order to explain, interpret and predict behaviors and it has achieved prominence with over the years, in relation to autism research in the international scene. However, some differences between their authors resulted in different ways to measure this capacity. Leslie (1987,1988) considers that the Theory of mind is already present in child\'s pretend play and employment of mental expressions used by children of two years. In contrast, Perner (1991) argues that the Theory of mind is only evident when the child has the ability to recognize that the mind is a system of representations about four to six years old. So, it is only after the resolution of the false-belief tasks that one could say that the child has a theory of mind, meaning that he distinguishes between the subjective and the physical world. The mental representation and the internal construction of the real world made by children were subjects extensively studied by Jean Piaget. Piaget (1947) argues that children reach a level of mental representation when they are able to differentiate between what is subjective and what is objective and when they overcome the egocentrism. While they think that everyone thinks like them, they don\'t find reasons to conform to common truths, and they won\'t be interested in seeking logical evidence about what they say. For Piaget, the egocentric thought is a primitive stage of logical thinking marked by three characteristics: predominance of the image of the concept, some unconscious thought and lack of logic. Based on Piaget\'s genetic epistemology and based on two studies case of one children with autism and one with neurotypical child development, this research concluded that these authors of the Theory of mind discourse on different stages of this capacity. Furthermore, through clinical interview, the employment of mental expressions and the analysis of the justifications of the participants in relation to the false belief task of Sally and Ann, this study concluded that the ability to attribute mental states to others requires the early overcoming of egocentrism, as described by Piaget. Therefore, children with autism, although they may employ mental expression in their speeches, they usually have difficulties to differentiate between the subjective and the real world, with a tendency to image representation at the expense of conceptual representation, unwillingness to prove what they say and difficulties in differentiate their own point of view from the other ones

As autonomous agents (such as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs) become more ubiquitous, they are being used for increasingly complex tasks. Eventually, they will have to reason about the mental state of other agents, including those agents' beliefs, desires and goals – so-called Theory of Mind – and make decisions based on that reasoning. We describe increasingly complex theory of mind models of a UAV pursuing an intruder, and show that (1) there is a natural Bayesian formulation to reasoning about the uncertainty inherent in our estimate of another agent's mental state, and that (2) probabilistic programming is a natural way to describe models that involve one agent reasoning about another agent, where the target agent uses complex primitives such as path planners and saliency maps to make decisions. We propose a nested self-normalized importance sampling inference algorithm for probabilistic programs, and show that it can be used with planning-as-inference to simultaneously reason about other agents' plans and craft counter plans. We demonstrate that more complex models lead to improved performance, and that nested modeling manifests a wide variety of rational agent behavior.

Le trouble de la théorie de l’esprit (ToM) observé dans la schizophrénie et la schizotypie pourrait résulter d’anomalies élémentaires de traitement du contexte. La compréhension de l’ironie, en tant qu’exercice de ToM contexte-dépendant, constitue un moyen privilégié de tester cette hypothèse. À l’aide de mesures comportementales et électrophysiologiques, l’objectif principal de ce travail était de préciser la place des anomalies des processus de contextualisation dans le trouble de la ToM dans la schizotypie-schizophrénie en utilisant le paradigme de l’ironie. Le second objectif était d’identifier les conditions dans lesquelles ces anomalies de la ToM se manifestent et celles dans lesquelles elles peuvent être compensées. Nos résultats suggèrent (i) que les difficultés de ToM dans la schizotypie-schizophrénie résultent d’anomalies de traitement du contexte, (ii) que ces difficultés concernent spécifiquement la mise à jour de la représentation des états mentaux en fonction du contexte, soit un processus sous-tendu par des stratégies contextuelles rétroactives connues pour être altérées dans la schizotypie-schizophrénie et (iii) que la structuration du contexte sémantique permet d’améliorer les capacités de ToM dans le spectre de la schizophrénie, tandis que la présence d’un co-acteur inconnu semble inhiber ces capacités. Nos résultats soulignent par ailleurs un lien entre l’altération de la ToM et les difficultés sociales des participants. En conclusion, ce travail désigne les processus de contextualisation comme une cible cruciale des programmes de remédiation de la cognition sociale dans les troubles du spectre de la schizophrénie. / Theory of mind disturbances are a core manifestation of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. They contribute to the social handicap associated with the pathology, leading to disruption in autonomy, professional achievement, and interpersonal relationships. According to several authors, these disturbances may be due to a contextual impairment. Irony comprehension as a context-dependent ToM exercise is an ideal way to test this hypothesis. The first aim of this work was to clarify the contextual impairment’s role in ToM disturbances in schizotypy-schizophrenia using the paradigm of irony through behavioral and electrophysiological measures. The second aim was to identify the conditions in which these ToM disturbances occur and the conditions in which they can be compensated. Our results suggest that (i) ToM difficulties in schizotypy-schizophrenia result from abnormalities in context processing, (ii) these difficulties relate specifically to the updating of the mental states’ representation according to the context, e.g. a mentalizing process underlayed by retroactive contextual strategies known to be altered in schizotypy-schizophrenia, and (iii) structuring the semantic context can improve ToM's abilities in the schizophrenia’s spectrum, while the presence of an unknown co-actor seems to inhibit these abilities. Our results also highlight a link between the participant’s ToM disturbances and their social difficulties. In conclusion, this work indicates the relevance of cognitive remediation programs that target contextual processing in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

La Teoria della Mente, abilità ritenuta alla base della buona riuscita delle relazioni sociali, è un rilevante e classico oggetto di ricerca della Psicologia dello Sviluppo e dell’Educazione che negli ultimi quaranta anni ha visto proliferare numerosi studi volti a indagarne i contenuti, oltre che a identificarne e approfondirne le tappe di sviluppo e le implicazioni di tipo relazionale e sociale. L'integrazione delle prospettive, i rapporti con altre discipline e l'assunzione di approcci interdisciplinari caratterizzano gli sviluppi recenti delle ricerche in psicologia, aprendo nuove prospettive di indagine. La tesi consta di tre capitoli, ognuno dei quali si riferisce a un autonomo progetto di ricerca. Tutti gli studi hanno coinvolto bambini di età scolare: età critica per l’acquisizione e lo sviluppo delle abilità di Teoria della Mente e periodo sensibile per quanto riguarda la competenza sociale, perché la rappresentazione, la considerazione e l’assunzione della prospettiva dell’altro diventa sempre più rilevante ai fini di una funzionale vita sociale e relazionale anche al di fuori del contesto familiare. Nello specifico, viene presentato il primo studio che propone una nuova interpretazione teorica e metodologica per valutare i risultati di un compito classico di falsa credenza di II ordine - il gelataio - in bambini di 10 anni alla luce della teoria dell'argomentazione e sottolinea il ruolo del ragionamento dei bambini nella capacità di rappresentarsi la prospettiva degli altri. Il secondo contributo, si propone di studiare il ruolo che la considerazione della prospettiva dell’altro svolge nei processi decisionali, in particolare nei giochi interattivi di scambio che valutano la fairness e l’altrusimo, analizzati in relazione alla capacità di ritardare la gratificazione. Infine il terzo studio è una proposta applicativa perché presenta l’efficacia del Progetto TiM (Thought in Mind Project), un progetto di formazione in cui le rappresentazioni del funzionamento della mente vengono proposte alle insegnanti durante alcuni incontri di formazione in cui si svolgono attività e si co-costruisce il significato di alcune storie suggestive. Il progetto ha visto il coinvolgimento delle insegnanti di scuola primaria e ha promuove un effetto indiretto sulle capacità di mentalizzazione all’inizio e alla fine dell’anno scolastico (prima e dopo l’intervento formativo sulle insegnanti) grazie alla creazione di una “comunità mentalizzante”, in cui i contenuti mentalistici oltre ad essere condivisi, vengono trasferiti ai bambini durante le attività in classe. Tutti e tre i lavori di ricerca sono attualmente pubblicati su riviste internazionali. / People, during all their life, understand and predict the other’s behaviour from the capacity to read the other’s mental contents. This skill is one of the hallmarks of human cognition and it is fundamental to social interaction. This psychological construct is referred to the ability to attribute mental states such desires, thoughts, beliefs, intentions emotions to self and others n order to predict their and others behaviour (Premack and Woodruff, 1978; Wimmer and Perner, 1985) and it is defined Theory of Mind – ToM. Understanding of mental states allows to explain observable events as actions by inferring unobservable entities like beliefs, desires, etc... also it involves understanding that others’ mental states may differ from one’s own, and may differ from reality (e.g., false belief). Children’s Theory of Mind has been a lively area of research in developmental psychology for the last 40 years. All the studies presented in the thesis involves primary school children: during this period of age children become more flexible and appropriate in understanding of mental states and they still beginning to understand the increasingly sophisticated capacity of represent the one’s own and other’s mental states. Moreover, it is considered as a critical age because children are called to engage a new relationship (i.e. think about the social networks in school, in church, in sport activity etc...) outside the family, that means they must use their ToM ability in new relational contexts (e.g. ToM helps people plan and manage their own and others’ choices and the decisions that characterize interpersonal relationships and social competence (Takagishi, Koizumi, Fujii, Schug, Kameshima, Yamagishi, 2014; Castelli, Massaro, Sanfey, Marchetti, 2013). One of the component of ToM is the assumption of other’s perspective, in fact the child might understand that people can have different beliefs, even different beliefs about the exact same situation; something can be true, but someone might not know that; something can be true, but someone might falsely believe something different. The aim of this thesis is to explore the children representation of other’s perspective in three different ways. To achieve this purpose, the studies presented address three main questions and the three different research contexts about this ability. The first proposes a novel theoretical and methodological interpretation to evaluate the results of false belief tasks in the light of argumentation theory and asks what the role of children’s reasoning in the ability to represent others perspective. The second question considers the other’s perspective with respect to one's own ability to thinking prospectively and to assume the other’s perspective in decision making processes. In the third study the assumption of other’s perspective has shown in a mentalizing theacher’s training and its indirect effects on pupils’ ToM ability. The first study is focused on exploring the main arguments behind 10 years old children’s responses in a classic second-order false belief task, in order to understand children's competences in the use of second level recursive thought. Interpreting the experimental setting as an argumentative discussion shed new and innovative light on the child’s answer to the experimenter’s questions, also explaining what premises are shared between adults and children and what possible misunderstandings might arise. Traditionally, in fact, the understanding of false belief is a classical measure of Theory of Mind and, in the false belief task, only the explanations that explicitly show that the child is engaging in recursive reasoning about mental states was considered right. The interpretation and the traditional coding of justifications reflect the child's ability to attribute and explain mental reasoning on the mental states of the characters of the story or the mental reasoning about false belief. Usually, however, these dichotomous classifications – wrong or correct and its coding 0/1 - neither reflect the justification answers as a countercheck of the test question. We wanted to try to makes explicit some components that are lost with the usual dichotomous evaluation through a qualitative analysis of the ToM reasoning about false beliefsr, in particular when children gave a “wrong” answer. For this reason, we have reinterpreted the traditional false belief task and the expected answer in argumentative terms, thus showing what is expected in terms of type of arguments and level of explicitness. Our findings show that a dialogic consideration of research settings allows to illuminate the reasons behind children’s “right” and “wrong” answers, which can be due either to the pragmatic context of the conversation or to a misunderstanding at the level of issues. Moreover, we have shown that, even in those cases in which a child’s answer and justification do not met the expectations, they can nevertheless be correct at the inferential level. The cause of the “mistake” should rather be sought for in the material/contextual premises at the basis of the argument. The second study investigates decision-making processes in 6, 8 and 10 years old children, highlighting the role played by prospective thinking on the relationship between altruism, wich benefits from immediate selfless reward, and fairness, that requires the strategic thinking. To assess this hypothesis, three different decision-making tasks, and namely an intertemporal choice task, testing their ability to delay gratification; the Dictator Game, assessing altruism; and the Ultimatum Game, assessing fairness/inequality aversion was admnistered. A component that, in our view, greatly affects the outcomes of these decisional tasks is prospective thinking, which critically involves a temporal aspect of decision making, insofar poorly addressed to. By relating results from the three tasks, our findings highlight overall changes in the children’s approach to decision-making, particularly at age 10, when the relationships between the manifold components of decisional dynamic are differently shaped. Such changes appear to be associated with a greater control to delay gratification, reflecting the ability to account for outcome optimization when making decisions. We suggest that this is due to the use of prospective thinking, which allows children to fully assess the advantages and disadvantages of the different decision strategies. In particular, children overall proposed more at the Ultimatum Game than at the Dictator Game task independently of age and gender. Especially in 10 years old children we showed the refinement of the strategic reasoning with age that take into account the other’s presence and the other’s response. The third study is focused on TiM (Thought in Mind) Project. We proposed a training program and the aim of this study was to introduce and explain the key concepts involved, and to provide teachers with direct experience of these methods. Moreover, we aimed to support teachers in reflecting together on how to apply the TiM Project in the classroom with their pupils. Changes in teachers’ attitude helped pupils in developing mentalizing skills, useful in order to create a context that support the social competence and cognition. We demonstred that the administration of a specific training program to adults is the first step to create a mentalizing community and that this kind of training can help children to develop and use their mentalization and ToM abilities. To reach this goal, we designed a “TiM Project training program” for primary school teachers, with the purpose of introducing and explaining the key concepts and methods of the TiM Project and involving teachers in a direct experience of these methods, selecting some of the original content and activities, adjusted to an Italian context and created others ad hoc for our training program. Subsequently, we tested the efficacy of this training by evaluating mentalization and theory of mind abilities in pupils. In particular, the results showed that, although some measured components of mentalization progressed over time, only the TiM Project training group significantly improved in third order false belief understanding and changed -in a greater way compared to the control group- in two of the three components of the Mentalizing Task, i.e. the rational dimension increased and the positive dimension decreased.

Using a multimethod-multimodal approach, this study compared the contributions of executive function (EF) abilities (Go No-Go, Visual Search, 2-Back task, and Task Switching) to narrative comprehension tasks (False Belief, Strange Stories, Self-Reported Theory of Mind Inventory [TOMI-SR]) and a narrative production task (interpersonal decentering) in a sample of young adults. Separate regression models were conducted for each theory of mind (ToM) measure with EF measures as predictor variables and empirically selected demographic variables controlled. As expected, in this college student sample (N = 110), False Belief demonstrated a ceiling effect and was not associated with any EF ability. Task Switching and 2-Back accounted for significant variance in Strange Stories. No EF task significantly predicted performance on TOMI-SR or interpersonal decentering. Both story comprehension tasks (False Belief and Strange Stories) were significantly associated, but these tasks were not correlated with either self-reported ToM or interpersonal decentering. Several unanticipated demographic associations were found; having more siblings and English proficiency accounted for significant variability in Strange Stories; education, presence or absence of self-disclosed autism diagnosis and mental health diagnosis explained a large portion of variance in TOMI-SR; interpersonal decentering maturity differed significantly between cisgender men and cisgender women. Lastly, interpersonal decentering number of interactions demonstrated an advantage for individuals without diagnosed or suspected autism diagnosis. This study raises critical concerns regarding measurement method error variance and variability of task demands in explaining cognitive mechanisms relevant to social cognitive processes.

Individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS), an autism spectrum disorder, are characterized by average to superior intelligence while at the same time experiencing severe and pervasive deficits in social interaction. While many individuals with AS report that they keenly desire social relationships, the combination of repeated social failures and intelligence sufficient to appreciate these difficulties increases the risk for developing depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns (Tantam, 1998; 2000). <p>Emotional intelligence (EI) is a construct that offers potential to understand individual emotional and social characteristics. The broad purpose of the two studies in this project was to examine ability and trait approaches to EI to understand if EI offers enriched understanding of social outcomes in AS. Further, this study explored EI, executive functions (EF), and theory of mind (ToM) to understand whether EI singularly or in combination with other theoretical explanations best accounts for social outcomes in individuals with AS. <p>The participants in this study were 25 young adults (aged 16-21) diagnosed with AS in Alberta and Manitoba. In study 1, trends and differences between AS and normative groups were examined. Further, correlation and multiple regression were employed to explore relationships amongst variables. Results indicated that trait EI was impaired for individuals with AS; however ability EI was intact. Regression analyses revealed that trait and ability EI together predicted 57% the variance for self-reported interpersonal skills and 31% of the variance for parent-reported social skills. Trait EI alone predicted 19% of the variance for self-reported social stress. <p>In study 2, EI, EF, and ToM were explored as predictors of social outcomes. Low correlations between EF and outcome variables precluded further analysis with this particular set of variables. Multiple regression procedures revealed that together ToM and trait EI predicted 33 % of the variance for self-reported Social Stress. The findings suggest that including ToM and EI measures in assessment protocols for individuals with AS provides important information to inform interventions.

Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) have deficits across many cognitive, behaviour and social domains. However, despite social difficulty being proposed as a main deficit following prenatal alcohol exposure, the nature of their deficient social behaviour is largely unknown. One process that may underlie difficulties in social functioning is poor social cognition, which refers to one’s understanding of the self, others and social world. The primary goal of this dissertation was to determine whether social cognitive deficits represent a core disability underlying the socio-behavioural problems of FASD using a bottom-up approach. The first level of this approach is represented by face processing. Global and independent face feature processing was compared between FASD and normal controls (NC) using experimental and clinical measures. Eye gaze processing was investigated next using experimental and clinical tasks. At the highest level of the bottom-up approach, social perspective taking, including theory of mind and empathy were examined, along with how these abilities related to parent-rated behaviour. Finally, the lowest level consisted of specific aspects of the social neural network. White matter in three limbic pathways was investigated using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Results generally supported the bottom-up approach of social cognition in FASD. These children showed impaired processing of face features, when matching mouth shapes and partially occluded identity, compared with NC. The FASD group was slower to process gaze and arrow cues, suggesting impaired attention shifting. Children with FASD also showed impairments in social perspective taking, including understanding false beliefs and empathy, and these impairments were related to parent-rated attention and social problems, and autistic-like traits. Deficits in theory of mind got worse with age in FASD and empathy showed distinct sex-related differences. Although no group differences were observed on DTI indices, groups did show different age-related changes in white matter. In conclusion, deficits at each level of the current bottom-up approach may underlie the social impairments in FASD and may contribute to their broader social behavioural phenotype. The results from this dissertation have potential to inform clinical practice and lead to more effective diagnostic and treatment approaches in FASD.

Because theory of mind (ToM; Samson, 2009) and executive function (EF; Meltzer, 2010) are important skill domains for children’s academic and social success in school, researchers have focused on evaluating the impact of interventions designed to enhance the development of these skills (e.g., Peskin & Astington, 2004; Dowsett & Livesey, 2000). Using an experimental design, the current study evaluated the effectiveness of the Georgia Wolftrap (GWT) program, a drama-based language intervention, at improving ToM and EF in a sample of kindergarten students from low socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds. Researchers (Cole & Mitchell, 1998; Noble, Norman, & Farah, 2005) have indicated that low SES is associated with underdeveloped ToM and EF. Thirteen lessons designed to enhance children’s understanding and use of symbols by exploring literature through imaginative role-play were implemented in place of the regular language arts curriculum. This intervention was hypothesized to engender growth in ToM because it incorporates elements found to be associated with ToM development, such as experience with language (e.g., Jenkins & Astington, 1996), mental state talk (e.g., Adrian, Clemente, & Villanueva, 2007), and pretend play (e.g., Cutting & Dunn, 2006). The impact on EF development, particularly inhibition and attentional control, was expected to be caused by children’s participation in intervention activities that require sustained, active engagement and use of motor and cognitive self-control. Consistent with research describing early childhood as a period of dramatic growth in ToM and EF (e.g., Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001), the results of paired-sample t tests indicated that the intervention (n = 41) and control groups (n = 42) demonstrated significant improvement in ToM, inhibition, and attentional control from pre-test to post-test. Despite a trend for the intervention group to demonstrate stronger performance, analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) indicated that, after controlling for pre-test scores, there were no significant differences in post-test scores between the intervention and control groups. Possible explanations for the lack of significant differences between the intervention and control groups are discussed. Implications for future research are also suggested.

Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) have deficits across many cognitive, behaviour and social domains. However, despite social difficulty being proposed as a main deficit following prenatal alcohol exposure, the nature of their deficient social behaviour is largely unknown. One process that may underlie difficulties in social functioning is poor social cognition, which refers to one’s understanding of the self, others and social world. The primary goal of this dissertation was to determine whether social cognitive deficits represent a core disability underlying the socio-behavioural problems of FASD using a bottom-up approach. The first level of this approach is represented by face processing. Global and independent face feature processing was compared between FASD and normal controls (NC) using experimental and clinical measures. Eye gaze processing was investigated next using experimental and clinical tasks. At the highest level of the bottom-up approach, social perspective taking, including theory of mind and empathy were examined, along with how these abilities related to parent-rated behaviour. Finally, the lowest level consisted of specific aspects of the social neural network. White matter in three limbic pathways was investigated using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Results generally supported the bottom-up approach of social cognition in FASD. These children showed impaired processing of face features, when matching mouth shapes and partially occluded identity, compared with NC. The FASD group was slower to process gaze and arrow cues, suggesting impaired attention shifting. Children with FASD also showed impairments in social perspective taking, including understanding false beliefs and empathy, and these impairments were related to parent-rated attention and social problems, and autistic-like traits. Deficits in theory of mind got worse with age in FASD and empathy showed distinct sex-related differences. Although no group differences were observed on DTI indices, groups did show different age-related changes in white matter. In conclusion, deficits at each level of the current bottom-up approach may underlie the social impairments in FASD and may contribute to their broader social behavioural phenotype. The results from this dissertation have potential to inform clinical practice and lead to more effective diagnostic and treatment approaches in FASD.