@book{
author = "Glumbić, Nenad and Brojčin, Branislav and Đoković, Sanja and Žunić-Pavlović, Vesna and Jablan, Branka and Ilić-Stošović, Danijela and Hanak, Nataša",
year = "2008",
abstract = "Ove godine se navršavaju tri decenije od kada su Premak i Vudraf,
dvojica primatologa sa Univerziteta u Pensilvaniji, skovala sintagmu
„teorija uma“ kako bi njome opisala sposobnost šimpanzi da sebi i drugima
pripišu razlicita mentalna stanja. Ovi autori su smatrali da covek intuitivno
razume mentalna stanja drugih osoba. Njihova, tek uzgredno pomenuta
zapažanja, da bi bilo zanimljivo ispitati prirodan tok razvoja teorije
uma kod skladno razvijene dece, kao i eventualne de$cite teorije uma kod
dece sa intelektualnom ometenošcu, inicirala su mnoga istraživanja u poslednjim
decenijama XX i prvoj deceniji XXI veka.
U našoj sredini tek su sporadicno ra&ena istraživanja iz ove oblasti,
pre svega kod skladno razvijene dece i dece sa intelektualnom ometenošcu.
Prve, dragocene podatke o razvoju teorije uma kod dece sa poremecajima
autisticnog spektra, nalazimo u radovima dr Ivone Milacic-Vidojevic.
Ispitivanja teorije uma kod dece oštecenog sluha i oštecenog vida retka su,
ne samo u domacoj, vec i u stranoj literaturi, dok se razvojem teorije uma
kod dece sa cerebralnom paralizom bavi svega nekolicina stranih autora.
Poseban podsticaj istraživanjima u ovoj oblasti dala su otkrica miror neurona
cija se funkcija dovodi u vezu sa sposobnošcu razumevanja tu&ih
mentalnih stanja; kriticki osvrti na ideju o univerzalnost de$cita teorije
uma kod osoba sa autizmom; zanimljiva istraživanja o odnosu razumevanja
mentalnih stanja i sposobnosti empatisanja kod osoba s poremecajima
ponašanja i, danas vrlo aktuelna, ispitivanja teorije uma kod osoba s
traumatskim povredama mozga.
U ovoj monografskoj studiji dat je pregled relevantnih istraživanja iz
oblasti teorije uma kod dece s posebnim potrebama.
Sam koncept teorije uma predstavljen je u uvodnom poglavlju
„Teorija uma“, autora dr Branislava Brojcina. Osim prikaza dominantih
teorijskih postavki (teorija modula, teorija teorije i teorija simulacije), autor
ovog poglavlja pruža nam dragocen prikaz pojedinih etapa u razvoju teorije
uma kod neurotipicne dece.
Najveci broj radova iz ove oblasti posvecen je poremecajima autisticnog
spektra, što je i logicno ako imamo u vidu da je ideja o de$citu teorije, Theory of mind refers to a person’s ability to form representations
of other people’s mental states, and to use these representations to
understand, predict and judge utterances and behavior. Infant precursors
or protoforms of theory of mind knowledge might be found even in the
$rst year of life, although most authors suggests that understanding of
intentational actions, which takes place in second half of the second year,
represents true manifestation of mentalizing ability. In the second year
of life children understand that other people have subjective experiences
like wishes and emotions. By the age of 3 most children make di*erence
between physical and mentalistic worlds. +e majority of studies on
theory of mind have focused on changes that take place at around age 4
in normally developing children. At this age, children typically develop
a representational understanding of mind, as measured by standard false
belief tasks. Between the age of 6 and 7 children realize that people may
react in di*erent ways on ambiguous situations. Subtle forms of this ability
continue to develop through childhood and adolescence.
Concept of the theory of mind, primarily posed by primatologists,
30 years ago, has generated vast array of research, especially in the $eld of
autism. Many studies have found that children with autism show speci$c
de$cits in theory of mind, and that they perform signi$cantly less well on
theory of mind tasks than matched comparison children.
In essence, this theory states that individuals with autism fail to impute
mental states to themselves and others and that this de$cit manifests as
inability to mentalise, or failure to take into account others’ mental states.
+e most widely used test of theory of mind is the unexpected transfer test
of false belief. It was soon revealed that nearly 20% of persons with autism
actually passed tests of false belief, which implies that de$cit of theory of
mind might not been universal. In the face of the issue of universality,
Baron-Cohen modi$ed his theory by proposing that a theory of mind
problem was in fact a delay rather than a de$cit. In order to scrutinize
that issue he developed more di.cult second-order false belief tasks. Given that mental age is related with false belief tasks performances some others
created advanced tests of theory of mind such as: Strange stories, Eyes
Test and Faux Pas stories. It was revealed that even persons with highfunctioning
autism have di.culty comprehending non-literal meaning or
recognizing emotions by reading information from eyes.
Many clinical symptoms of autistic disorder, such as narrow and
obsessive interests or repetitive behavior, could not be explained by theory
of mind de$cits. +at is why Baron-Cohen has extended this theory to
empathizing theory. Empathizing involves the ability to attribute mental
states to self and others as well as the ability of having an emotional reaction
that is appropriate to the other person’s mental state. A de$cit of empathizing
might account for the social and communication abnormalities in autism,
while repetitive behavior, obsessions and islets of ability could be assigned
to intact systemizing ability. Discrepancy between these two abilities leads
us to the conclusion that autism could be described as the extreme form of
the male brain.
Prevalence and expression of neurodevelopmental disorders might
be related to sex di*erences in brain development and prenatal and
neonatal testosterone exposures are strong candidates for having a causal
role in sexual dimorphism in behavior, including social behavior, and as
risk factors for conditions such as autism. In addition, apart from autism,
many other disorders occur more o,en in male than in female individuals,
including dyslexia, ADHD and early-onset persistent antisocial behavior.
+e nature of the relationship between conduct disorders and theory
of mind de$cits is still inconclusive. While some authors claim that children
with antisocial behavior have de$cits in theory of mind ability, the others
argue that, at least in some cases, delinquent children and adolescents do
have even superior ability of recognizing other’s mental states.
In seminal investigations of the theory of mind abilities Baron-
Cohen found that by the age of 4 typical children and children with Down
syndrome usually pass $rst-order false belief tasks. In later research it was
found that, unlike children with autism, 90 percent of typically developing
children (mean chronological age 7.5) passed the second order false belief
test, as did 60 percent of the children with Down syndrome (mean verbal
mental age of 7.5). One could conclude that the ability of mentalising is
almost intact in children with intellectual disabilities. However, more
thorough investigations revealed that children and adults with intellectual
de$cits do have signi$cant constrains in the development of theory of mind ability. It was also argued that verbal mental age could not be used as
a strong predictor of the future development of this ability.
Researches in a domain of theory of mind ability in children with
sensorial de$cits are very sparse, in spite the fact that this ability is strongly
depended upon verbal pro$ciency, which is compromised in deaf and hard
of hearing children. In addition, many authors spotted similarities between
children with autism and congenitally blind children.
Various factors o,en cause delayed or changed motor, cognitive,
speech and lingual, and emotional and social development in visually
impaired children. It is realistic to expect that the delay will be manifested
also in their ability of understanding themselves and other people as beings
possessing their own mental world, the world of their own wishes, needs,
thoughts, intentions and believes, which we call the theory of mind.
+e research $ndings show that there is a delay in visually
impaired children in creating the bond with other persons and a delay in
understanding social situations which disclose di*erent emotions of other
people. According to $ndings of several investigations, including the only
research carried out in Serbia, (Jablan, Hanak and Stanimirovic, in press),
the blind children had achieved 100 % scores in the theory of mind tasks of
the $rst and second levels in the age of twelve years.
Just for the sake of comparing, fully sighted children in the age
of 4-5 years achieve success in the $rst level tasks (Wellman et al, 2001,
according to Cicchetti et al, 2003; Lešnik Musek, 2003), and in the second
level tasks in the age of 6-7 years (Lešnik, Musek, 2003). It is interesting
that blind children of the same age, at about 12 years, achieve remarkably
good scores at solving the third level theory of mind tasks, and, in the age
of 13, they achieve the plateau in developing the ability of recognition of
the faux pas (Jablan, Hanak and Stanimirovic, in press). We can conclude
that, in comparison to the fully sighted children, the blind ones manifest
the longest delay in development of theory of mind of the $rst level, while
delays in development of the higher levels are ever less.
In our opinion, there are direct and indirect consequences of visual
impairment responsible for the delay in the theory of mind acquisition, as
well as in the acquisition of the earlier nonverbal forms of intersubjectivity.
Furthermore, the delay in development of prelinguistic forms of
intersubjectivity, which are considered to be a direct predecessors and
the ground for developing the linguistic ones, (Meltzo*, 1985, 1990 and
Trevarthen, 1980 and 1998, according to Beebe et al, 2005; Stern, 1985),
could be of special signi$cance for understanding the delays of the blind children in the theory of mind development. As we could see, in relation to
the fully sighted children, the longest delay in development of the theory of
mind in the blind children is concerning its basic, $rst level.
Direct consequences may appear because of the insu.cient experiences
of cross-modal contingency (Meltzo*, 1990, according to Beebe et al,
2005), whereby the lack of visual information is obviously critical. Namely,
we assume that, in the blind children, there is not enough stimulation
of the mirror brain areas, which enable the recognition of the states and
intentions of others (Carr et al, 2003; Meltzo* i Gopnik, 1993, Tomasello,
1999, all in Beebe et al, 2003). +e next direct consequences could be the
absence of the imitation of the facial expression, which is also a channel for
understanding the mental states of others by the autonomous responses,
which are generated by the facial expression characteristic in particular
emotional states (Ekman, 1990, 1993; Dimberg et al, 2000).
+e indirect consequences are referred to all obstacles in the direct
mother-child interaction, which, consequentially lead to disturbed or
poor contingency and the tracking of the interaction participants. +ese
obstacles maybe due to the uninformed parents about the ways the visual
impairment a*ects the child’s displaying the needs, especially the needs
for interaction; due to rejection of child’s disability, and/or the parents’
trauma, who have got a disabled child. Within the domain of the parentchild
verbal communication, the use of the mentalistic terms can be of
crucial relevance. +e investigation of Mains et al, (2002), has shown
that mothers, who saw their children as capable of intentional acts, will
response more sensitively and more adequately to the child’s needs, will be
motivated to understand child’s behavior, and they will more frequently
use the mentalistic terms in their interaction with the child. +e children,
whose mothers used more mentalistic terms in the interaction in the age of
six months, were more successful in the test battery for the theory of mind
testing in 45-48 months age!
Although there are no similar investigations of parent/visually
impaired child interactions, the investigation of Roch-Levecq (2000)
indicates that the visually impaired children are poorly involved in the
forms of conversation in which the participants spontaneously talk more
about mental states of other people.
Growing theoretical value is lately being ascribed to the question
whether the inability of grasping the concept of false belief is limited to
autism or whether it includes some other categories of developmental
disorders. Research results point to a category of children, which appear to have the same extended delay in deductive theory of mind skills, as autistic
children do. +ese are hearing impaired children which unlike autistic
children, have no CNS disorder. Hearing impairment is usually caused by
a lesion localized in the inner ear.
Results of di*erent studies show that acquisition of theory of mind
in hearing impaired children could depend on the nature and length of
conversation within the family, during early childhood. +ree di*erent groups
of hearing impaired children can be identi$ed based on their participation in
either verbal or gestural communication with family members. +e $rst group
consists of children who live with hearing impaired parents and develop early
rich gestural communication. +e second group consists of hearing impaired
children who have acquired oral language through implementation of an
auditory method and hearing aid, resulting in the use and understanding
of speech within their environment. +e third group consists of hearing
impaired children who were not educated for oral speech and who have
acquired sign language as late as the school period, since their family was
not trained to use gestural communication. Hearing impaired children who
have used sign language since early childhood and those who successfully
acquired oral communication show a signi$cant di*erence in success in
the false belief tasks, when compared to their hearing impaired peers who
have not acquired oral communication and whose families have not been
trained in the use of gestural communication.
Hearing impaired individuals who have been using oral or gestural
language since early childhood, manage to develop the concept of false
belief at the same age as hearing children. However, hearing impaired
children who had not acquired oral communication and started with late
use of sign language instead, systematically show poor results in false
belief tasks (Courtin and Me1ot, 1998; Peterson and Siegal, 1999). +ese
di*erences are not transient in nature, but permanent, and can be followed
at ages from 5 to 16 years (Peterson, Siegal, 1999; Russell et al., 1998).
Even when hearing parents employ great e*orts in learning to
communicate with sign language, the result is o,en discouraging.
Vaccari and Marschark claim that over 90% of hearing impaired children
have hearing parents and a signi$cant number of these parents are either
unfamiliar with gestural communication or know the skill poorly. In
such cases, it is recommended for the children to be included in early
auditory training in order to acquire oral language, since this single
mode of communication can help them achieve well-developed cognitive
processes within their hearing families.+e reviewed research leads to a general conclusion that development
of speech and language and the skill and possibility of using speech are
crucial for communication within families and could have a central role in
understanding mental processes.
At least, but not at last, we should stress that children with cerebral
palsy also have many constrains in the development of theory of mind
abilities. It is seemed that only 25% of these children with signi$cant
language disorders pass false belief tasks of the $rst and the second order.
Development of mentalizing ability in these children is rather delayed than
abnormal. +ese $ndings could be interpreted by lack of social interactions,
poor social experience, constrain capacity of working memory and
localization of the brain injury. In the last few years some authors made an
e*ort to investigate theory of mind ability in persons with traumatic brain
injuries. It seems that bifrontal lesions signi$cantly contribute to the loss of
previously well developed theory of mind, although the results on relation
between this ability and executive functions are still to be scrutinized.",
publisher = "Univerzitet u Beogradu – Fakultet za specijalnu edukaciju i rehabilitaciju/ University of Belgrade – Faculty of Special Education and Rehabilitation",
title = "Teorija uma dece sa posebnim potrebama, Theory of mind of the children with special needs",
pages = "143-1",
url = "https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_rfasper_4013"
}
