Theory of Mind and Autism
Giulia Ferrazzi, Elisa Bonucchi, Ilaria Caggio, Sara Giberti, Maria Ilardi, Laura Panini, Francesca Olivieri
It is only recently that the analytical behavioural field has been examining theory of mind in depth (Dhadwal et al., 2021, Dyrda et al., 2020), proposing and implementing increasingly complex and molecular training programmes. The literature offers limited material on the subject (Lecheler et al., 2021), which is often not very usable for those without previous training in Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). The following paper has the purpose of summarizing the best known training programmes currently available in the literature, making them accessible even to those who do not have a thorough knowledge of ABA. The working group selected the studies of Adel Najdowski (PhD, BCBA-D) and Angela Persicke (MA, BCBA), currently professors at Pepperdine University and with more than 40 publications and collaborations with reference journals in the field of behaviour analysis (e.g. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis). In recent years, the two researchers have dedicated their activity to studying training for students with high functioning autism (Suarez et al., 2021, Welsh et al., 2018, Najdowski et al., 2018) by classifying and breaking down the sub-skills that fall within the subject of theory of mind (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985). Prerequisites and applicability are discussed in the article along with operational proposals.
Keywords
Theory of mind, ABA, Autism.
