Evaluation Of The Theory Of Mind's Ability Of 6-year-old Children With High Or Low Autistic Traits

As a special group,individuals with high autistic trait have subclinical manifestations similar to ASD patients,including poor cognitive flexibility,more anxiety,lack of empathy and social skills.However,in the past studies in the field of autistic traits,most of the research subjects at home and abroad were adolescents or adults,children were rarely involved.Even the gender difference between children with high or low autistic traits are not supported by relevant research.At the same time,the theory of mind(ToM)is a social skill that children must possess to help them understand the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity,psychology and behavior,and promote their prosocialization process.Therefore,the research on the theory of mind for children with high autistic traits has important research value.In addition,all-or-none paradigms(such as unexpected-location task which belongs to classic false belief task)used in the traditional field of ToM have also received many criticisms and challenges.Based on the principle of voluntary participation,some Autism-Spectrum Quotient(AQ) questionnaires were sent to parents of first-grade students in a general elementary school in Tianjin,and 91 valid questionnaires were collected.There were 48 boys and 43 girls,with gender as the independent variable and AQ scores as the dependent variable,the independent sample T-test showed that the boys' AQ scores(M=19.15,SD=6.42)were significantly higher than the girls'AQ scores(M=16.56,SD=4.76).A total of 91 subjects who had been successfully recovered the AQ questionnaire were screened,finally,the experimental group(children with high autistic traits)and the control group(children with low autistic traits)were each selected 25 people.There was a significant difference in AQ scores between the two groups,while the difference of gender ratio,age,and the scores of Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices(SPM) was not significant.The subjects received continuous tasks,continuous tasks with reserved icons,and all-or-none tasks in turn.The results showed that:(1)Among the three tasks,although the results of experimental group were slightly inferior to the control group,the difference between the two groups did not reach the significant level;(2)First,there are differences in the types of responses in different tasks.In all or none tasks and continuous tasks with reserved icons,only "fully equipped ToM" and "fully unequipped ToM" are displayed.The ratio of "continuous ToM" in both tasks is 0.However,in the continuous task,three complete types of answers were displayed,and 16%of the children in both groups exhibited continuous ToM.Second,there are differences in the pass rates in different tasks.Regardless of the type of subject,the pass rate for all or none tasks is higher than for continuous tasks,while the pass rate for continuous tasks with reserved icons are closer to all or none tasks than closer to continuous tasks.After analyzing and discussing the research results,the study draws the following conclusions:(1)There is a significant gender bias in the autistic traits of children,and the AQ scores of 6-year-old boys were significantly higher than the AQ scores of 6-year-old girls;(2)Children with high autistic traits did not show defects of ToM in the three tasks;(3)Traditional all-or-none tasks masked the continuity of ToM development,overestimated children's ToM level,and such overestimation has a lot to do with the options with clear indicative icons.