Verbal Fluency is Related to Theory of Mind: Comparison in Control Children and with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Autism is a pervasive neurodevelopment disorder, primarily encompassing difficulties in the social, language, and communicative domains. Although neurocognitive impairments in theory of mind (ToM) and in executive functions have both been hypothesized to play a causal role in autism, there has been little research investigating the association of these two aspects with regard to autistic symptomatology. The relation between executive function and theory of mind may involve specific processes of verbal ability and/or working memory capacity contributing to ToM. To differentiate these alternatives, we administered task batteries measuring working memory and ToM, as well as measures of verbal fluency, to 15 children with autism spectrum disorder. The results indicated that children with ASD performed significantly worse than normal children on ToM tasks (Z=4.7, p<0 .001). Furthermore, the results indicated that theory of mind abilities in ASD individuals are strongly correlated with language ability (r=0.52, p<0.05). However, it was found that autistic children's difficulty in attributing a ToM is not due to memory failure.