Theory and Practice 1: Conceptual Frameworks in Autism

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condition (social communication, social imagination, flexible thinking, 10%
emotional and sensory processing) across the spectrum of autism
A critical analysis of one cognitive theory inclusive of drawn from a range of 70%
empirical sensory processing
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profile of autism and the relevance in terms of discerning needs and 10%
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Introduction

Autism Spectrum Disease (ASD) in people with autism spectrum disorder causes restriction in
hormonal abilities that affects self - expression, speech intelligence and proficiencies in general
(American Psychiatric Association, 1994; Wing & Gould, 1979). Notably the understanding
of the neurological mechanisms involved in a condition like autism has been the objective of the
majority of studies undertaken in the most recent years. Consequently, majority of diagnoses are
still made based on behavioural analysis and tests, despite the fact that the biological makeup of
individuals contributes significantly in the build up of the disorder (Smalley, et al., 1988).

Notably a complex relationship exists between the presence of autistic children in the school
system and the emerging tendency toward the notion of inclusive education, as such this
relationship has a number of implications for parents, autistic children and education authorities
as well (Seach, et al., 2005). Additionally, because autistic children develop differently from
their neurotypical peers, they frequently struggle to succeed in conventional educational
environments (Jordan, 2005). Furthermore, due to the magnitude and intricacy composition of
autism, many people who have direct contact with them have reported feeling confused and
underqualified to satisfy these children's requirements (Starr, Foy, & Kramer, 2001).

However, it has been well-documented that parents of autistic children are frustrated and
dissatisfied with the school-based services (Spann, Kohler, & Soenksen, 2003). According to a
recent study, autism has a strong genetic component that stems from human physiology, despite
the fact that previous research efforts frequently focused on the behavioural aspects of autism
(Bailey, et al., 1998; Baron-Cohen, et al., 1998; Happe, 1999). Because of this, The most
probable and complete explanation of this condition relies on the opinion of many experts that
the mental mechanisms dictate the social and communicative problems that contribute to autism.
(Baron-Cohen, 1989; Frith, 1991; Hill, 2004).

To further explain this disorder, a number of cognitive theories have been developed; The
theory-of-mind deficiency is probably one of the foremost well-known hypotheses that has
dominated the majority of behavioral study to date (Premack & Woodruff, 1978). The theory of
mind has dominated most studies because It provides the best image possible of what an autistic
spectrum disorder seems like.

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Autism and Cognitive Theory as a Concept

With no known cause or treatment, autism is a persistent persisting condition that lasts a lifetime
and is majorly discovered at infancy between the 0-3 years (Lovannone, et al., 2003). Wing
(1981) originated the term autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to capture the symptoms categories
of autistic disorder, high functioning autism, and other related characteristics. Although
intellectual ability varies overboard the autism spectrum, the underlying deficiencies in social
and non-social areas seems general in nature, thus informing the benchmarks for its diagnostic
criteria (Leslie & Frith, 1988).

Additionally, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders- Text
Revision (DSM-IV-TR), Constrictive, monotonous, and predictable patterns of behaviour,
preferences, and aspirations all contribute to these fundamental difficulties in societal
engagement and information sharing evolution (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). No
behavioral health theory has been put forward so far that can fully explain all of these elements.
However, other cognitive models have been created recently in an effort to explain various
aspects of these fundamental deficits in individuals with autism (Baron-Cohen, 1989; Leslie &
Frith, 1988). The mind theory is a key concept that is extensively debated.

Review of Relevant Literature

In order to discus in depth the behavioural pattern of autistic persons as it relates to cognitive
theory, In order to comprehend autism spectrum disorder properly, it is necessary to take into
account the numerous behavioral hypotheses developed over time. Three major lines of thought
in cognitive theories were reviewed in this study. They are discussed as follows

Theory of Mind: Frith and Frith (1999) asserts that social existence depends on a part of social
awareness, while social intelligence entails recognising another person's mental state and
responding appropriately to it. When tested with false belief and the unexpected transfer tasks,
people with autism spectrum disorders demonstrate a deficit in the theory of mind, failing to
comprehend the emotions and mental states of the other person and consequently failing to
connect with them as well as failing at socialising (Baron-Cohen, et al., 1985).

For instance, at my previous job, I gave the Sally-Anne task to a specific group of newly
admitted pupils. The scenario illustration is shown to the kids and it can be performed by

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puppets, toys, or actual people. The other character, Anne, moves the ball into her box when the
first character, Sally, leaves it in her basket and leaves. The kids are asked where Sally should
look for her ball when she returns at the conclusion of this role play or demonstration. Sally
should look in the basket, which describes what Sally genuinely thinks as she is not aware that
the ball has been moved, is the response that the majority of typically developing kids will give.

The answer that Sally will look for the ball in the box, where the ball actually is, is typically
given by my autistic pupils because they are unable to comprehend how others think. Because of
this, it has been assumed that Sally has a theory of mind deficit based on her inability to
comprehend her incorrect belief. We now know more about the characteristics of the disabilities
in autism thanks to this innovative account. The Theory of Mind, however, has several
drawbacks. Although it explains a significant trait seen in people with Autism, this theory falls
short of offering a convincing justification for the prevalence of repetitive and stereotypical
behaviours (Happe, 1999). This introduces the second idea that accounted for the occurrence of
these behaviours.

Theory of Executive Dysfunction: Knowing what the basic concept of "executive function"
entails is necessary to comprehend why executive dysfunction offers an insight for the
abnormalities in autism. The phrase "executive function" refers to a variety of high-level
cognitive abilities that control behaviour and guide it toward predetermined goals, especially in
novel situations (Norman & Shallice, 1986). (Russell, 1998). Welsh and Pennington (1988)
included the ability to retain a suitable problem-solving set for the accomplishment of a specific
vision to their definition of executive function. Planning and monitoring behaviour, setting
priorities, stopping automatic behaviours, and keeping knowledge in working memory while
using them are some behaviours that can be categorised as executive functions (Russell, 1998).

Numerous relevant research that has received validation from scientific evidence have
demonstrated that individuals with autism do exhibit abnormalities in executive tasks that require
working memory, inhibition, and set-shifting. (Pennington, et al., 1996). Additionally, some of
the theoretical limits of the theory of mind are regarded to be alternatives to executive
dysfunction. In their experiment, Using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the Tower of Hanoi
as benchmarks, Ozonoff, Rogers, and Pennington (1991) established that all of the individuals
with Autism/ Asperger's syndrome performed badly on these tests, but not all of them performed

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badly on the theory-of-mind task. It is still unclear whether executive dysfunction and theory of
mind impairment are the primary hypotheses underlying autism, despite the fact that executive
dysfunction offers an alternative explanation for theory of mind deficit (Russell, 1998). One odd
non-social characteristic of autism has been the prevalence of individuals who score better than
average in math, music, art, and occasionally jigsaw puzzles. According to Rimland & Hill
(1984) and Happé (1999), it affected almost one in ten autistic individuals. Weak Central
Coherence (WCC) was thus proposed by Frith (Frith & Happé, 1994) as a theory to account for
this phenomenon.

Weak Central Coherence: The habitual propensity to integrate the local incoming information
for high-level meaning, according to Frith (1989), is the fundamental coherence of non-social
features. Processing information as a unit as opposed to in parts is a natural instinct. For instance,
Bartlett (1932) hypothesised through his experiment that people were likely to remember the
idea of the story but rapidly forgot and/or had trouble remembering the detail: Normally, a
person wouldn't analyse a scenario like this in such detail. In any typical situation, a person had a
strong propensity to form an overall perception of the situation, and from there they built the
most likely detail. (1932; Bartlett)

According to Hermelin and O'Connor (1967), young children and individuals with mental health
issues who are not autistic also exhibit this predilection for global processing. According to Frith
(1989), people with autism had problems with the way their brains naturally processed the
world's information. The idea of the weak central coherence theory can also be comparable to
Kanner's (1943) diagnosis of autism, which was accompanied by a predisposition for detail-
focused processing that was clinically discovered in autistic individuals in relation to their
reluctance to change. This frequent trait of autism, according to Kanner, is the inability to
experience wholes without paying close attention to the individual pieces (Happé, 1999).

The weak central coherence would apply to both the positive assets and deficiencies in autism,
according to Frith's (1989) prediction. In other words, activities demanding a global integration
of information are projected to be poorly performed by a weak central coherence, while tasks
where it is desirable to pay attention to local information are predicted to be well performed
(Happe, 1999). Weak central coherence has been demonstrated at three levels: perceptual,
visuospatial-constructional, and verbal-semantic (Happé, 1999).

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Happé (1999) proposed that people with autism were given the typical visual illusions and asked
to distinguish between them, taking into account the perceptual coherence impairment
discovered in the preceding tasks. Some of these illusions were broken down into to-be-judged
figures and contexts that caused them. The idea was that since people with autism tend to
concentrate more on the specific pieces of things, they might be less susceptible to those visual
illusions. The findings revealed that the autism subject group concentrated more on the aspects
that will be judged without merging them into the overall illusion-producing figure. It has also
been shown in other studies that local-level processing at the perceptual level is biased. The
McGurk effect, which favours visual perception over audible perception, is another factor that is
diminished in autism (de Gelder, et al; 1991).

Shah and Frith (1983) used the Wechsler Block Design Task (Wechsler, 1974, 1981) to show
that inadequate coherence at the visuospatial-constructional level was caused by segmentation
abilities. They hypothesised that people with autism evaluated the designs in terms of their
components pieces. Additionally, they discovered that people with both high- and low-
functioning autism performed better on the Embedded Figures Test (Witkin, Oltman, Raskin and
Karp, 1971). Additionally, reading comprehension scores tend to be lower for those with autism
than reading accuracy levels (Loker and Rutter, 1969; Frith and Snowling, 1983).

Moving on to verbal-semantic coherence, Tager-Flusberg (1991) found that autistic people

frequently do not use grammatical relations or semantic signals. In memory tests, people with
autism do not gain from meaning (Hermelin & O'Connor, 1967). Also proven to be difficult to
understand are homographs (Frith & Snowling, 1983). These findings support Kanner's
(1943) indication from his earlier cases that children read blandly and feel stories in chunks
rather than in their entirety. According to these findings, people with autism tend to employ
analytical or local processing as opposed to global processing, and they also use semantic
information significantly less frequently.

Since findings suggest that the effects are apparent in the sections where the top-down semantic
signals are prominent, the current investigation will focus on another lower-level language
processing and voice perception where the influence of vocabulary development has been proven
(Ganong, 1980). The Ganong Effect is what is occurring here.

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Theory of Mind as a Model

Theory of mind (TOM), also known as mentalizing, is the ability to take into account one's own
and other people's mental states when interpreting and predicting behavior (Leslie & Frith,
1988). According to reports, children with autism have a TOM that is underdeveloped, meaning
they have trouble understanding other people's ideas and feelings, may find it difficult to
understand, and frequently find other people's behaviour incomprehensible (Baron-Cohen, 1989;
Ozonoff & Miller, 1995). Additionally, recent neuroimaging studies have shown that people with
autism display much reduced activation in the brain regions that are crucial for mentalizing in
neurotypical people (Castelli, et al., 2002).

As it enables people to create and sustain fulfilling social connections and encourages
community adaptability across time, developing suitable social skills is a crucial aspect of typical
development (Cacioppo, 2002). A wide range of underlying cognitive capabilities known as
social cognition must develop in order for social skills to emerge, which is a challenging
psychological development (Beauchamp and Anderson, 2010). The ability to attribute mental
states to oneself and others, such as desires, knowledge, beliefs, and intentions in order to predict
behavior, was first described by Premack in the 1970s, and since then, TOM has been a major
focus of developmental and social psychology as well as speech therapy (Premack & Woodruff,
1978, Byom & Turkstra, 2012).

It was accepted that children needed to be able to build diverse theoretical depictions of reality,
move between them, and identify their own states from those of others using a variety of cues in
order to demonstrate flexible and explicit TOM (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). Since then,
developmental cognitive science has researched this area more than any other (Sabbagh &
Paulus, 2018). More recently, the discipline of social neuroscience has paid attention to TOM as
a social cognitive construct, which has led to the creation of a substantial body of mainstream
literature about the neural circuits underpinning TOM (Gallagher & Frith, 2003; Frith & Frith,
2006; Blakemore, 2008; Bellerose et al., 2011; Bird & Viding, 2014).

Children who have good TOM typically exhibit signs of social adaptability, including that of
improved communication skills, more fulfilling social interactions, an increase in group appeal,
and strong educational accomplishment (Binnie, 2005; Fink et al., 2015; Slaughter, 2015;
Slaughter et al., 2015; Imuta et al., 2016). On the other hand, in a number of conditions and

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contexts characterised by disturbed social functioning, such as autism spectrum disorders, lower
TOM has been seen. (Yirmiya et al., 1998; Shaked and Yirmiya, 2004; Senju, 2012; Chung et
al., 2014; Kimhi, 2014; Leekam, 2016), language impairment (Stanzione and Schick, 2014),
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (Bora & Pantelis, 2016), Tourette's syndrome (Eddy &
Cavanna, 2013), childhood maltreatment (Luke and (Payne et al., 2016) and Fragile X syndrome
(Turkstra et al., 2014).

The theory of mind has dominated most studies since it provides the most accurate description of
the nature of an autistic spectrum condition by a wide margin. According to Rajendran and
Mitchell (2007), The failure of autistic individuals to comprehend and take into account other
people's mental states or points of view can be used to explain the theory-of-mind profiled in
many of the behavioural symptoms of autism in social, communicative, and imaginative
activities (Jarrold et al., 2000).

While the theory of mind can explain the majority of the behavioral, social, and cognitive issues
these individuals exhibit, it is unable to explain a number of behaviours that are characteristic of
autism, such as the fixation on similarity, monotonous behaviors, and difficulties switching their
attention from one task to another. According to some researchers, these symptoms were similar
to those of a certain kind of brain injury.

Investigations into the function of TOM in therapeutic settings and normative development are
still ongoing. The use of validated, developmentally appropriate assessment techniques is
necessary to advance this understanding because social cognition is now included in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders' assessment criteria. (DSM-V; American
Psychiatric Association, 2013). Despite the multitude of measures that have been produced to
investigate TOM (particularly in the field of cognitive science), it is challenging to select the
appropriate measure for a given therapeutic or research objective. There are many difficulties in
evaluating TOM, some of which are connected to the various and diverse definitions and
conceptualizations of TOM that have been presented.

(Premack and Woodruff, 1978; Wimmer and Perner, 1983; Leslie, 1987; Tager-Flusberg &
Sullivan, 2000; Abu-Akel & Shamay-Tsoory, 2011, Dennis et al., 2013, Bird & Viding, 2014;
Westby, 2014; Asakura and Inui, 2016, and Happé et al., 2017), the variable manifestations of

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TOM at various developmental stages (Wellman et al (Mayes et al., 1996; Brune, 2001; Hutchins
et al., 2008a; Carlson et al., 2013; Hiller et al., 2014).

Review of Theory of Mind and Other Cognitive Theories

Depending on the assessment tool used, a variety of characteristics are targeted by the
multidimensional phenomenon known as TOM (German & Cohen, 2012). Each definition or
theory provides a slightly distinct idea of its specificity (Premack and Woodruff, 1978; Wimmer
& Perner, 1983; Leslie, 1987; Tager-Flusberg & Sullivan, 2000; Abu-Akel & Shamay-Tsoory,
2011; Dennis et al., 2013; Bird & Viding, 2014; Westby, 2014; Asakura & Inui, 2016; Happé et
al., 2017) However, it is commonly acknowledged that TOM refers to a collection of cognitive
abilities that allow rationalisation about emotional or cognitive mental states, such as beliefs or
emotions.

The self to other model of empathy (SOME) is especially used in most studies as a framework to
define TOM and establish the eligibility and limitation standards for the literature search. The
complete model called the SOME is based on scientific information from clinical and
neuroimaging investigations (Bird & Viding, 2014). Instead of concentrating only on internal
TOM processes, it shows how social cognitive structures like TOM interact to influence
empathic behaviour. A crucial distinction made by SOME is between TOM and empathy: The
difference between TOM and empathy is that TOM is the cognitive representation of one's own
and other people's mental states, whereas empathy is the emotional contagion caused by
exposure to another person's emotion while being aware that the other person is also
experiencing that emotion (Bird & Viding, 2014).

The emotional cue categorisation system, i.e. the lower sensory mechanism in charge of
processing and categorising cues signalling affective states, such as facial emotions and voice
tones, is distinguished from TOM in the model. The SOME model also asserts that TOM is
separate from a scenario understanding system that processes situational signals and infers or
associates estimated emotional states of others depending upon situational cues, for example,
black denotes morning and melancholy (Bird & Viding, 2014). Because of this, the model is
helpful for drawing distinctions between TOM and other social cognitive categories that are
strongly connected to it; in the current review, it was utilised to separate primary TOM measures
from those that are more distantly related to TOM.

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The TOM construct should be kept separate from other abilities because, while they may be
based on TOM or rely on it, other social cognitive processes are better suited to represent them.
Along with doing this, a specific definition of TOM must be used to identify and specify the
right evaluation tools. For instance, many apparently prosocial and self-promoting behaviours
rely on TOM, but they may be evaluated more thoroughly with the help of specialised tests that
highlight collaboration, adherence to social norms, lying, and deceptive interpersonal methods
(Baurain & Nader-Grosbois, 2013; Slaughter, 2015).

Other distinct characteristics, such as disposition, life circumstances, merging of societal

attitudes, and executive ability, influence how TOM is applied in regular social encounters
(Beauchamp & Anderson, 2010; Slaughter, 2015; Vera-Estay et al., 2015). In order to identify
assessment measures that specifically target TOM, it is crucial to choose assessment tools that
specifically elicit TOM rather than those that evaluate more complex social cognitive abilities,
such as moral reasoning (Vera-Estay et al., 2015) and strategic social decision making
(Steinmann et al., 2014), for example.

To limit the search to the most straightforward kinds of TOM, developmental concerns should
also be taken into consideration. Determining which infant social abilities are regarded early,
direct expressions of TOM which are different cognitive antecedents that allow TOM to form, is
still up for debate (Carlson et al., 2013). Early social skills like emulation, gaze following,
figuring, and joint attention may reflect, at most, more fully automated and inherent
manifestations of awareness of mental states. While the question of the first measurable
manifestations of TOM has not yet been resolved ideally or practically, current literature as well
as majority of authors suggest that this is the scenario (Carlson et al., 2013).

Thus, it is believed that these abilities serve as stepping stones for later-developing TOM
abilities, which are the focus of the present review and reflect an unambiguous, cohesive,
versatile, and theoretical knowledge of mental processes. In conclusion, this review defines
TOM to set it apart from empathy, categorization of affective and environmental signals, early
quasi cognitive structures of mental states, like peer interaction and emulation, and more
sophisticated social skills, like cooperate or modification techniques.

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The Developmental Trajectory of TOM and Associated Measurement Tools

It is not unexpected that a wide range of models and indicators have been devised to explore the
construct given the various definitions and concepts of TOM. Despite the wide range of mental
states that kids must learn to comprehend (including emotions, knowledge, intents, beliefs, and
wants), there seems to be a preponderance of tests meant to gauge just one form of mental state:
erroneous assumptions (Hedger & Fabricius, 2011; Hiller et al., 2014).

Wimmer and Perner (1983) first developed the false belief paradigm, which has since been
modified and used in a variety of scenarios (Wellman et al., 2001). Typically, a brief story that
highlights a difference between reality and a character's perspective is offered to children. For
instance, in the change of location paradigm known as the Sally and Ann task, a child is offered
two dolls with the names Sally and Ann (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985). Before leaving, Sally puts
her marble in a basket. Ann takes the marble out of the basket and puts it in a box. When Sally
comes back, the youngster is asked where she would seek for the marble.

Children must answer "in the basket" even though they are aware that the marble is actually in
the box in order to pass this activity. This type of situation allows researchers to gauge a child's
ability to comprehend that a person's mental state is not just a reflection of reality and suggests
that the child is capable of developing a theory about another person's mental content, or theory
of mind.

The concept that TOM develops during this time period is supported by the finding that children
often complete false belief paradigms successfully between the ages of 3 and 5 (Wellman et al.,
2001). TOM, however, exhibits a more extensive and complex developmental pattern, as
revealed by the application of a wider range of metrics and techniques (Wellman et al., 2011).
Implicit, non-verbal, and simplified measurements in particular revealed that some TOM abilities
may already be present in infancy, a conclusion that could not be established using traditional
assessments due to the extraneous elements inherent to the tests. These tests were made to be
used with pre-verbal infants that were very young (Slaughter, 2015).

According to this research, children may recognise others' intentions around the age of 12
months, grasp others' wishes around the age of 18 months, and can demonstrate some
understanding of erroneous beliefs as early as 15 months of age by using implicit methods

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including watching imitation behaviours, violation-of-expectation paradigms, and eye gaze
tracking (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997; Poulin-Dubois et al., 2007),(Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005;
Southgate et al., 2007; Senju, 2012). Many experts disagree on how to interpret these findings;
some argue that implicit tasks are reliable and viable ways to evaluate TOM (Carruthers, 2013;
Powell et al., 2018), while others argue that there isn't enough evidence to justify their usage.

Failures to successfully reproduce research employing intuitive indicators of false understanding

have sparked a reproduction problem, which has exacerbated this controversy (Sabbagh &
Paulus, 2018). The discussion around the invention and development of TOM and its first
quantitative expressions is influenced by the question of the validity and reliability of these
activities as well as the degree of what is assessed utilising implied techniques to evaluate theory
of mind (Heyes, 2014; Scott & Baillargeon, 2017; Sabbagh & Paulus, 2018). On the other hand,
the use of multiple, more challenging definite TOM activities has led to the theory that TOM
continues to develop after the age of five.

Between the ages of 5 and 6, children become increasingly adept at grasping second order false
belief assignments, such as "Ann thinks that Sally thinks the marble is in the basket," and during
adolescence they develop a more sophisticated comprehension of sarcasm, faux-pas (social
gaffes), and white lies (Miller, 2009). During a range of TOM activities, neuroimaging studies
also show longitudinal changes in patterns of brain activation, indicating prolonged development
well into adulthood and into adolescence (Blakemore, 2008, 2012).

When taken as a whole, these data show that TOM cannot be viewed as a unitary concept and
must be understood in the context of its constant evolution. In order to accurately document a
complex and quickly evolving cognitive capacity, there is also a need to underscore the
significance of depending on a variety of TOM measures that are trustworthy, valid, and
sensitive to developmental changes.

Psychometric Challenges Associated with TOM Measures

Even though there has been made a significant stride in understanding of both normal and
abnormal TOM (Wellman et al., 2001; Gallagher & Frith, 2003; Vuadens, 2005; Poletti &
Adenzalo, 2013; Kimhi, 2014; Imuta et al., 2016), it is still challenging to draw firm conclusions
about its function in average progress and clinical circumstances. These difficulties could be the

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result of empirical flaws in the TOM assessment criteria (Hiller et al., 2014; Henry et al., 2016).
The fact is, unsystematic, inadequate, and unsophisticated terms have been used to describe the
psychometric requirements of TOM assessments (Mayes et al., 1996; Brune, 2001; Hutchins et
al., 2008a; Carlson et al., 2013; Hiller et al., 2014).

The over-representation of false belief understanding as the only TOM measure is one of the
fundamental deficiencies of TOM appraisal, as it is a fact that only a small number of TOM
indicators have scientifically confirmed psychometric features (Hutchins et al., 2008a; Hiller et
al., 2014; Ziatabar Ahmadi et al., 2015).

Existing Sources of Information on TOM Measures

As far as research is aware, there has not been a thorough assessment done to describe the
characteristics of the TOM measures that are currently used for young children. Non-systematic
reviews of TOM measures have been published for adults (Henry et al., 2015), middle childhood
(Sprung, 2010), clinical populations (Sprung, 2010), middle childhood and adolescence (Henry
et al., 2015), and clinical populations (Sprung, 2010). (Hayward and Homer, 2017). These
evaluations highlight the usefulness of a number of TOM indicators for analysing social efficacy
in clinical contexts and typical development while providing fascinating insights into their use,
but they are unstructured and do not take into account instruments designed for infants, toddlers,
and preschoolers.

A systematic review of TOM measures for preschoolers was undertaken by Ziatabar Ahmadi et
al. (2015), although they limited the scope to papers presenting the creation and verification of
complex assessments made up of a variety of TOM tasks. Their review excludes single task
measures (such as single false belief tests) since individual task variables make up the majority
of measurements used in TOM research (Hiller et al., 2014). In addition, Ziatabar Ahmadi et al.
(2015)'s review is limited to studies that only seek to analyse the psychometric properties of
TOM indicators, neglecting other types of scientific inquiries (e.g., longitudinal, outcome or
prediction papers).

Conclusion

The main goal of this study was to rigorously assess one cognitive hypothesis used to explain
behaviours in autistic people. Hence the theory of mind concept of cognitive theory was the

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chosen theory which was discussed extensively amongst the various cognitive theories identified.
The theory of mind has been the subject of the majority of research since it provides the clearest
picture possible of the characteristics of an autistic spectrum disease. Although TOM as a theory
offers an innovative description of the understanding of the nature of the impairments in Autism,
a critical investigation of the theory's review demonstrated that this is not truly the case a s there
are however certain drawbacks. Even while it explains a significant trait exhibited in people with
autism, TOM falls short of offering a convincing justification for the occurrence of repetitive and
stereotypical behaviours.

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