Effectiveness of cognitive and affective Theory of Mind Instruction in the Improvement of Hot and Cold Empathy in children with child abuse

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the cognitive-emotional theory of mind on improving hot and cold empathy in children who have been victims of child abuse. In line with this goal, 2 child victims of emotional abuse were purposefully selected in the form of a single-subject experimental design with a single baseline. According to the research design, in the baseline stage, the subjects' cold and hot empathy status were measured using the Dads et al questionnaire. Then, in the intervention phase, the skills of psycho-emotional theory were implemented during twelve sessions based on Hall et al model. In this regard, during the fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth and twelfth sessions, the subjects' cold and hot empathy were measured. For data analysis, the ocular and graph analysis methods were used and the percentage of effect size and improvement was calculated. Data analysis indicated that teaching the skills of the emotional-cognitive theory of mind is clinically effective in improving the hot and cold empathy of child victims of emotional abuse. These findings have practical implications in the clinical field and indicate that the promotion and improvement of the theory of mind protects children from the harms caused by emotional abuse.