Abstract
Research that focused on Theory of Mind (ToM) development in blind children showed that they were delayed, but not permanently deficient, in various types of false belief tasks. More recent studies reported first evidence of typical ToM development in blind children and suggested that more comprehensive tools to evaluate ToM had to be used. The current paper analyzed ToM development in blind children, using the adapted version of the ToM Storybooks; this is a standardized comprehensive test developed to provide a reliable and stable measurement, in comparison with the false belief tasks. Results showed that blind children’s ToM performances were very similar to the ones of matched typically developing children, matched on chronological age and gender. The current finding supported the importance of the use of a more comprehensive tool to assess ToM in atypical population.
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Notes
A previous study showed that the items of the original version of ToM Storybooks loaded on four factors (Bulgarelli et al. 2015). Such factorial structure is not tested neither in atypical populations nor in the audio version of the test, thus sub-measures of the ToM factors are not reported in the current study.
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Acknowledgments
Study 1 was run by the second and third authors, who would like to thank Maria Nives Sala and Nicoletta Pinto for their support in data collection. Study 2 reported part of the results of the first author’s Ph.D. Dissertation Thesis; she would like to thank Prof. Adriano Pagnin, PhD supervisor from the University of Pavia; Roberta Ceroni for the contribution in data collection; Dr.ssa Paola Caldironi, Executive Director of the Fondazione Robert Hollman at the time of the research, and Josee Lanners, Deputy Director of the Cannero Riviera Centre. We thank the children and the families who participated in the studies, the Fondazione Robert Hollman of Cannero Riviera (Italy) and Padova (Italy), and the schools that were involved in the research project.
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GB conceived of the Study 2, participated in its design and coordination, performed its measurement and helped to draft the manuscript; DB conceived of the Study 1 and participated in its design and coordination, performed its measurement and the statistical analysis of both studies, and drafted the manuscript; PM conceived of the Study 1, participated in its design and coordination, helped to perform the analyses and to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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This study was carried out in accordance with the ethical recommendations of the Ethical Code of the Italian Psychologists Association. All subjects gave their written informed consent in accordance to the Declaration of Helsinki.
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Bartoli, G., Bulgarelli, D. & Molina, P. Theory of Mind Development in Children with Visual Impairment: The Contribution of the Adapted Comprehensive Test ToM Storybooks. J Autism Dev Disord 49, 3494–3503 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04064-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04064-3