Theory of Mind

Hello, I understand that you have read about Theory of Mind but this theory was devised by a non autistic person who is heavily criticised by the autistic community. The idea that it is fundamental to being autistic is wrong.

The idea that autistic people have difficulty with Theory of Mind is innacurate - another false and harmful claim from Simon Baron Cohen. Autistic people have a Theory of Mind it’s just that cross neurotype interactions frequently lead to misunderstandings as both groups of people have vastly different experiences of the world. Therefore it becomes difficult to relate to each other. Autistic masking is also very common which also means that SBC’s theory is wrong as we understand how we are perceived by non autistic people. Have you heard of the Double Empathy problem?

https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/double-empathy

https://autisticscienceperson.com/2018/05/31/theory-of-mind/amp/

Hello, I understand that you have read about Theory of Mind but this theory was devised by a non autistic person who is heavily criticised by the autistic community. The idea that it is fundamental to being autistic is wrong.

The idea that autistic people have difficulty with Theory of Mind is innacurate - another false and harmful claim from Simon Baron Cohen. Autistic people have a Theory of Mind it’s just that cross neurotype interactions frequently lead to misunderstandings as both groups of people have vastly different experiences of the world. Therefore it becomes difficult to relate to each other. Autistic masking is also very common which also means that SBC’s theory is wrong as we understand how we are perceived by non autistic people. Have you heard of the Double Empathy problem?

https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/double-empathy

https://autisticscienceperson.com/2018/05/31/theory-of-mind/amp/

Regarding the double empathy theory, I found this paper particulalry interesting: 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1362361320919286#:~:text=However%2C%20the%20Double%20Empathy%20theory,and%20a%20non%2Dautistic%20person. 

Essentially what they did is they made groups of 8 people: either 8 autistic people or 8 neurotypicals or a group of mixed austists and neurotypicals (50:50). 

A researcher would read a story to the first person in each of the groups. That person would then have to tell the story to the next person in their group. This second person would then again have to pass on the story to the following person etc. The researchers recorded how much information was lost at each recounting/ passing on of the story.

Interestingly they found that communication in autistic only groups/chains was just as effective as in neurotypical only groups. However in the mixed autistic/neurotypical group communication was much less effective and more information was lost.

This supports the idea the autistic people can communicate well amongst each others. Similarly neurotypicals communicate well with each other. The difficulties arrise when autistic people and neurotypicals communicate with each other. It probably took a while for this to be recognised as autistic people usually get judged on how they communicate with neurotypicals and not on how well they communicate with each other. 

I found this study very interesting. 

Yes, Simon Baron-Cohen is using the fact he's a Cousin of a major Celebrity to try and make himself known. His Psychopath test, he did with Jon Ronson, tried to insinuate that Christians are Psychopaths.

'Experts' are Nineteen to the Dozen these days. Mostly full of hot air.