No theory of mind? Bollocks to that Simon Baron Cohen!

[gess]

We had some choccy biscuits in our fridge that have gluten in them so ds1 isn;t allowed them. He;s been trying to get to them all day. I told him earlier to leave them alone. So he came up to me whilst I was on the phone, grabbed my hand and led me out of the room to ds2 who was on the computer. He then sidled out of the room. Guessing where he'd gone I peered into the kitchen to spot him hand on the biscuits, he saw me, laughed and put them back grinning all the time.

I hid them whilst he was out the room (so he tried another biscuit box- don;t usually have this many just had lots of visitors recently who keep bringing them).

He does do this sort of thing all the time, but today made me laugh.

[tibni]

What a star!

My ds looks at me with a cheeky look and says " ds NO!" and then does something he knows he shouldn't laughing and looking for a reaction and ensuring he has my attention.

[dustystar]

[pagwatch]

The more times Simon Baron Cohen and bollocks are placed in the same sentence the greater my confidence in the good sense of man.


What a cheeky boy

[gess]

tibni- ds1 does that- he cna't talk but he reaches towards something he's not allowed and pretends to take it, looking at me the whole time and laughing. I love it when they're cheeky.

[flyingmum]

Can I be really dim. What does Baron Cohen say about theory of mind? Am I to infer that he says that ASD kids are not capable of being being pickles/devious/cheeky/manipulative? If he does then he's never met mine - he's got a Phd in all of these! Or have I got this wrong?

big to your cheeky chappy Gess

[dustystar]

IIRC the idea is that children with autism are not able to understand that other people feel differently and have different thoughts to them.

[Peachy]

I once nursed an asd chap sos evere he ahd no communication at all- totally shut off (bar one incident where he tried to snog my very pretty sister LOL).


One day we were looking for a key for a particular room, he'd grabbed it because he realised the lemonade was in tehre, tried to get it to work, failed and used it to lever the window, snuck in and downed 3 literes of lemonade

Oh did we PMSL

[tibni]

ds has very little language but he has started trying to tell jokes!

current ones - foam red nose from red nose day - picks it up and says "ball" I repeat "ball" he falls about laughing saying "no Nose!"

and "daddy" to his godfather - waits for the reaction then he says "daddy no "DS" "godfathers name" - oh he thinks he is funny! even after much repetition!

[coppertop]

LOL! Cheeky little monkey.

[Pixel]

Ds came in the living room the other day with something behind his back. I guessed he had a biscuit and asked him what he had in his hand so he leaned backwards against the sofa (with biscuit behind him still) and held up both his hands as if to say "Who me? nothing, look!". I wasn't sure if that was theory of mind or just being devious. He's always deliberately doing things he knows are wrong but with his gaze fixed firmly on me to see how far he can go before I react.

[onlyjoking9329]

i always know when DS is planning to do something he shouldn't when he says, mum, why don't you go in the other room and drink coffee
DD! is a bit of a magpie and often hides her sisters stuff, if i say do you know where DD" toy is , she will say its not under my pillow/bed, save me a lot of time.

[gess]

I love these stories! It shows an understanding of other people's desires/beliefs even if it doesn;pt show an ability to pass flase belief taks..... (sorry dull bit there). OJ- ds1 hides his favourite posessions from his brothers as well.....

[onlyjoking9329]

My DS has started to tell lies too
he also says i didn't do it i swear, then he puts his hands over his mouth and says whoops i swore
makes me laugh everytime.

[mymatemax]

I love it when i read these stories, just shows how clever children can be & what a great sense of humour your ds has.
One of the reasons ds2 wasn't given a firm asd dx was because he has a good SOH, apparently children with ASD don't do tricks etc.

[Peachy]

DS3's sociability is according to SALt today, the only thing holding abck a firm dx , should have referred her here LOL- these all sound like both of them! DS1's jokes are so painful we take it in turned to hear them LOL (As you can't work out the punchline and where you're supposed to laugh), and he does the things behind his back / Mum why dont you just sit over there.... (so he can climb kitchen cupboards out of view LOL). DS3 isn't so advanced but loves the holding toys above the loo whilst giggling sort of thing.

They can be so much more fun than people give them credit for, can't they?

[gess]

I'm hoping to do a research project on teasing by severely autistic children starting next month (and will be going on for 3 years!). If you're interested in your child taking part (it only involves sending video clips of any examples) fell free to CAT me (or I can CAT you) to be kept informed. Has to go through ethics etc yet. The aim really is just to show that they're not a bunch of vegetables (well there's more to it than that, but I think that's important, especially as SALT is limited locally for example as supposedly our children aren;t capable of anything )

All these sound fab.

[Dinosaur]

gess you sent me a little video clip of your DS1 teasing you - I don't know if you remember - but I thought it definitely showed theory of mind (not that I am an expert, of course).

[dustystar]

Gess - ds isn't severe enough for your research but i'd be really interested in reading the study when its finished. Will you get it published?

[gess]

Hopefully dusty. Although I think it will take a while to collect enough data. I am hoping to get some recent research published (similar sort of stuff). You're welcome to a copy when I've written it.

Yep- that's it dino. Ds1 does have an understanding that other people have different desires than him, and that they have some sort of 'right' over his actions. Which is the beginning of theory of mind. He's pretty good at joint attention as well, often points out stuff he finds interesting. I'm hoping to build up a whole corpus of those video clips- preferably from a whole group of different children.

[dustystar]

Yes please gess - that would be great.

[Eulalia]

This morning ds caught me unawares. I was having a moan about not being able to do what I want to do and he said "like what?". I said not washing dishes, cooking etc etc...." to which he replied "No tell me what you want to do, not what you don't want to do!" How come he can work that one out but seems unable to put his shoes on most mornings. And yes theory of mind, it developed about age 7. I think SBC did say it was only delayed though if I remember right.

[Peachy]

Gess ds3 has a review meeting this month with a view to a formal dx- OF that happens (I never place my bets LOL) I'll see what i can send you wrt ds3. , he does perform quite well to camewra.

Sounds like great, positive research.

[gess]

yep- eulalia- but there is a school of thought that the more severely autistic a child/adult is the 'less' theory of mind they have, with mute children having almost none at all (and that is why they're mute). I don't think that's true. Byut very little research is carried out on the severe end of the spectrum- and I don't think its right to just extrapolate back. My soapbox

[gess]

Thanks peachy. I have 3 years to collect data