Learn from the mistakes of others

one of the joys of reading gobs of articles concerning asprerger's syndrome has been the little psychological theory known as "theory of mind". apparently, us autistic types can't figure out that other people have minds, and therefore get confused about what goes on in other people's heads.

the idea is that a person who has this "theory of mind" is able to realise that other people have separate minds, and therefore don't know what you know. i'll use a description of one of the tests for this "theory of mind" to elucidate - the so-called sally anne test:

In this test, the child gets to see two dolls, Sally and Anne. Sally puts a marble into a basket and then leaves the room. Anne enters the room, takes the marble out of the basket and puts it into a box. The child then gets asked where Sally would look for the marble when she comes back to the room. It is seen as a sign of ToM [theory of mind] if the child understands that Sally doesn't know what Anne knows, and therefore answers that Sally will look in the basket where she put the marble herself.

J. Blackburn, K. Gottschewski, Elsa George, and Niki L,
"A discussion about Theory of Mind : From an Autistic Perspective,"
Proceedings of Autism Europe's 6^th International Congress, Glasgow 19-21 May 2000

psychologists find that when they play this game with a neuro-typical child, the child usually points to the basket because they know that sally doesn't know that anne has moved the marble. they get all excited about this because when an autistic child is put through the same game, they point to the actual location of the marble. psychologists use this kind of game to 'prove' that auties don't know that other people have separate minds.

from the first time i read this, and i've read it a lot lately, i was unimpressed. and some of the things that passed through my mind have been discussed by others (for example, by several aspies in the article quoted above). a question that comes to my mind is this: what makes psychologists so certain that this kind of game demonstrates the proposition they propose?

to put it another way: if aspies (and other non-neurotypicals) don't think the way that neuro-typicals do, how can neuro-typicals be so certain that they can draw the same conclusions from observed behaviour?

i most certainly have a clear understanding that other people have separate minds. indeed, that is a factor in much of my difficulty in understanding them from time to time. unlike almost all neuro-typicals, i do not assume that like-behaviour is produced by like-thinking. that kind of heuristic might work for most people, who are all playing the same mental guessing games, but it is not (automatically) valid when you are observing someone who is not neuro-typical. [this appears to hold true for most people who do not share the dominant neurological patterning - whether they're auties, schizoid, or whatever.]

the other thing that bugs me is how patronising many neuro-typicals are/can be. whether they mean to or not, one of the most common responses i get when i try to describe what it is 'like' to be me is "all males are like that", or "so, i have problems with that too" ... [leads to a strong desire to avail myself of a decent sized axe. then i remind myself that i'm aspie not sociopathic ... it's just so easy to get confused ...]

An exceptionally well-adapted and able autistic person resembles that imaginary creature, the mermaid, of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tale. The mermaid, who was in love with a human prince, desired to take on human form, but could do so only at considerable cost. She had to sacrifice her voice to gain legs but when she moved it was like walking on knives. As she was unable to communicate, those around her did not understand her true nature. This led to the prince marrying someone else, and to her own failure to gain a place in this world.

Superficial resemblance to normality is, as case histories [...] show, within the reach of at least some Asperger individuals. It may well be that this capacity to achieve near-normal behaviour is the single most distinctive feature of Asperger syndrome as opposed to other forms of autism.

Carrie Lay, Autism and Asperger Syndrome - book reviews.
Whole Earth Review, Fall, 1993

to end with a little humour ... try the Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical