Autism and Theory of Mind
Laura Panini, Francesca Olivieri, Elisa Bonucchi, Ilaria Caggio, Maria Ilardi, Giulia Ferrazzi
The behaviour analytic field is working more and more to try to find new ways to teach complex verbal behaviour repertoires (Persicke et al., 2022; St. Clair et al., 2022; Suarez et al., 2022). Theory of Mind (ToM) is a complex subject that has affected various topics such as psychology and special education for more than 30 years. Despite the criticisms levelled at behaviour analysis, application of behaviour analytic training have shown that they can also be shared with other professions that collaborate in the treatment of people with disabilities (Gasiewski et al., 2021; Summers et al., 2022). In this second article on the topic of prospect taking, we continue to refer to the studies of Adel Najdowski (PhD, BCBA-D) and Angela Persicke (MA, BCBA), currently professors at Pepperdine University and with more than 40 active publications and collaborations with reference journals in the field of behaviour analysis (e.g. the «Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis»), dealing in particular with preferences, desires, sarcasm and emotions. In addition to examples and materials, possible uses of the training and its limitations will be discussed.
Keywords
Theory of mind, Aba, Autism, Natural environment teaching.