Part 2 book “Autism - An introduction to psychological theory” has contents: The talented minority, asperger’s syndrome, autism and not-autism, remaining puzzles - a look to the future. | Chapter 7 The talented minority Chapter 5 described a recent and influential cognitive explanation of the triad of social, communication and imagination impairments found in autism. This theory suggests that autistic people lack a theory of mind, and are not able to attribute independent mental states (such as false beliefs) to themselves and others. As Chapter 5 showed, this theory has been quite successful in explaining the pattern of impaired and preserved functioning in many people with autism. Chapter 6 reviewed some other psychological theories of autism, and looked at some of the major criticisms of the theory of mind approach. In particular, the issue of primacy was discussed at some length. Here, we look again at the question of universality: do all people with autism suffer from “mind-blindness”? Explaining theory of mind test success In every study using theory of mind tests, some people with autism are found to pass. How can we explain this test success? The first question is whether those autistic subjects who pass theory of mind tests are actually capable of representing mental states—does mentalizing underlie their test success? If not, then an inability to mentalize may still be universal to autism. If, on the other hand, we believe that some autistic people can represent mental states, we are faced with the puzzle of their continued social and communicative handicaps. To explain these we might hypothesize either a damaging delay in acquisition, or a persisting additional impairment which hampers use of mentalizing in everyday life. In this chapter some possible explanations of task success are examined, and some empirical evidence from very recent studies is discussed. The nature of social abil ity in the most able individuals with autism has been the focus of my own research to date, and so much of the work discussed here is mine, and some of the theoretical analyses reflect my own personal perspective. The strategy hypothesis One way of .
