Research for understanding of mind in children with developmental disorders

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We researched understanding of mind in children with developmental disorders. We developed an understanding task based on Baron-Cohen, et al. (1985) and Happe (1994), and executed it to typically developed children and children with developmental disorders. In a false belief task, children heard a story (false belief) and were asked to predict behavior of a character. In advanced task of understanding of mind, children heard several stories (metaphor, lie, white lie, joke, and cynics), and asked which a character's speech was true or not, why he/she said so. Most of typically developed children and most of children with developmental disorders succeeded to predict behavior of the character and to judge which the character's speech was true or not. Typically developed children referred to the character's mental states or intention. Contrarily, children with high functioning pervasive developmental disorders did not correctly refer to the character's mental states or intention.On the other hand, we researched the development of social behaviors and understanding of mind in a child with autistic disorder. In a special education school, the child joined drama lessons. In one drama, he was trained to pay an attention to other's gaze. He became to pay attention voluntarily to other's gaze in drama, and to support voluntarily his partner. In the other drama lesson, he was trained to express emotion with facial expression, gestures, and so on. He became to play drama actively and expressively. In daily life, his voluntary social behaviors and prosocial behaviors were increased. We execute some false belief tasks with him. He became to succeed one of the tasks.