'Theory of Mind'

It is an attempt to explain one aspect of autism behaviours, and is highly theoretical. So if you are having trouble seeing yourself or a child with aspergers doing it, don't worry.

It is about whether people on the spectrum can understand what others are thinking - whether we can read the collective mind.

There is a collective mind - most people seem to click to something at the same time, eg see a subtle joke, or notice something going wrong, or come up with the same solution to a problem. It is probably an instinctive survival function from the days when we were monkeys swinging in the trees. The whole community needed to understand some things collectively.

People on the spectrum don't use non-verbal cues properly, whether reading them or generating them. So it might just be that we miss very subtle cues.

But Theory of Mind goes further, into some sort of collective understanding. Tests on children at different ages - like the ones with two dolls, a box and a ball - or those geometric shape puzzles like one shown on a TV programme last year (what happens next?)- repeatedly show that normal children do it right, and people with autism get it wrong.

I'm just not sure that the deductions psychiatrists and psychologists make from these tests are really getting us anywhere.

Part of it hinges on whether puzzles are solved from memory or by intellectual analysis - people on the spectrum tend towards memory.

Another part must be social cues.Because people with autism don't develop this acuity they don't develop a collective use of it.

Also thinking in pictures rather than words might be a factor.

To put it in real everyday terms we appear insenstive to what others around us are thinking. We don't recognise when someone else needs a cuddle or an effusive thank you. We don't realise when sympathy is called for. We don't anticipate what is happening in a room full of people and need more explanations (I was always having to ask for directions to be repeated, and never can work out where everyone else is suddenly going).

But whether what the boffins think it is about really helps us in real life, goodness knows.

It is an attempt to explain one aspect of autism behaviours, and is highly theoretical. So if you are having trouble seeing yourself or a child with aspergers doing it, don't worry.

It is about whether people on the spectrum can understand what others are thinking - whether we can read the collective mind.

There is a collective mind - most people seem to click to something at the same time, eg see a subtle joke, or notice something going wrong, or come up with the same solution to a problem. It is probably an instinctive survival function from the days when we were monkeys swinging in the trees. The whole community needed to understand some things collectively.

People on the spectrum don't use non-verbal cues properly, whether reading them or generating them. So it might just be that we miss very subtle cues.

But Theory of Mind goes further, into some sort of collective understanding. Tests on children at different ages - like the ones with two dolls, a box and a ball - or those geometric shape puzzles like one shown on a TV programme last year (what happens next?)- repeatedly show that normal children do it right, and people with autism get it wrong.

I'm just not sure that the deductions psychiatrists and psychologists make from these tests are really getting us anywhere.

Part of it hinges on whether puzzles are solved from memory or by intellectual analysis - people on the spectrum tend towards memory.

Another part must be social cues.Because people with autism don't develop this acuity they don't develop a collective use of it.

Also thinking in pictures rather than words might be a factor.

To put it in real everyday terms we appear insenstive to what others around us are thinking. We don't recognise when someone else needs a cuddle or an effusive thank you. We don't realise when sympathy is called for. We don't anticipate what is happening in a room full of people and need more explanations (I was always having to ask for directions to be repeated, and never can work out where everyone else is suddenly going).

But whether what the boffins think it is about really helps us in real life, goodness knows.