The goal of this study was to examine theory of mind and deliberate rule use in children with Down syndrome as compared to children of normal intelligence. Theory of mind was defined as the ability to understand that other people have thoughts, beliefs and desires. Deliberate rule use was considered to be the extent to which children were able to learn and subsequently switch between a set of ad hoc rules unrelated to mental states. Participants included 10 individuals with Down syndrome and 10 individuals of normal intelligence matched for mental age. The primary finding of this study was that individuals with Down syndrome do not possess a theory of mind at a mental age of 5 years. Furthermore, individuals with Down syndrome possess domain specific knowledge of embedded rules, whereas, individuals with normal intelligence apply an embedded rule structure that effects mental and non-mental state tasks equally. The embedded rule use of individuals with Down syndrome was characterized by: (a) an inability to effectively use embedded rules in theory of mind and deductive card sort tasks; and, (b) the ability to use embedded rules in a task assessing physical causality.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.69609 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Benedetto, Elizabeth-Anne |
| Contributors | Burack, Jacob (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001392486, proquestno: AAIMM91661, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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