The Effectiveness of Mind Theory Training based on the Hall and Tager-Flusberg Model and Role Playing on Improving the Theory of Mind in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Children with autism spectrum disorder are not only unable to understand the minds of others, but also have underlying problems in understanding that others may have different minds. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of mind theory training on promoting theory of mind in children with autism.

This study was an experimental study with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. 12 children with autism spectrum disorder (age range 7 to 10 years) were selected using convenience sampling and were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The theory of mind was taught to the experimental group for 25 sessions and the control group did not receive the training. At the end both groups were evaluated in post-test. The research instrument consisted of theory of mind test (Steirnman, 1999, Iranian standard form,2006). The data were analyzed using covariance analysis.

The results of the data analysis showed that the intervention program was able to increase the mean of the subscales of theory of mind in the experimental group (p <0.001), while the Post-test scores of the control group in all subscales did not change significantly.

The findings of the present study showed that training the theory of mind increase the ability to recognize and represent emotions (first level of theory of mind), understanding of primary false belief (second level of theory of mind), and an understanding of secondary false belief (third level of theory of mind) in children with autism. The implications of the results are discussed in the paper.