The Effectiveness of Theory of Mind Training on the Promotion of Theory of Mind Levels in Educable Intellectual Disability Students

The aim of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of theory of mind training on the promotion of theory of mind levels in students with intellectual disability. The research followed an experimental design with pretest and posttest measurement, and included a control and an experimental group. 30 intellectually disable female students, 8-to-12 years were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling method. After matching the groups for their age, their intelligence and theory of mind scores, they were divided into two experimental (N=15) and control (N=15) groups. Students in the experimental group were trained for 9 sessions with theory of mind but the control group did not receive any training. Measures included a 38-item questionnaire testing the participants’ theory of mind and Raven’s Progressive Matrices. The results of an ANCOVA showed that the theory of mind training had significant effect on the promotion of the theory of mind levels (p<0.001) among 8-12 year old female student with intellectual disability.