Differences of the Theory of Mind (TOM) in Children who stutter

This research aimed to compare the Theory of Mind (TOM) ability in stuttering pre- school children and their normal peers and also to investigate the effect of the TOM on the stuttering severity of children that was studied in a case-control study. The participants included pre- school children (girls and boys) who stutter and normal peers in Zahedan city. The age of children in the both groups was 6 year-old (Mean:6±0.2). Sixteen Persian language children who stutter (CWS) in a convenient sampling method with a minimum of six months of stuttering were selected. Eighteen normal peers homogeneous in terms of demographic variables were selected as a control group. To collect data, Theory of mind questionnaire was used that its validity and reliability was reported by Qumrani et al (2005). The data was analyzed by ANOVA. Results showed that the CWS received more scores than the normal children in the Theory of Mind test, and there was a significant difference between the two groups (P <0.0001). Findings of the current study showed that the stuttering children considered and interpreted the stimuli in a different way than the normal peers.