I like this new research. For decades, teams said that autistic people can't understand that people have minds & opinions of their own. ('Theory of Mind') (sigh). There's been a lot of pushback about this e.g. Damian Milton's work. Now, there's even more. psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202... - ThreadSky

annmemmott.bsky.social • 53 days ago

I like this new research.
For decades, teams said that autistic people can't understand that people have minds & opinions of their own. ('Theory of Mind') (sigh).
There's been a lot of pushback about this e.g. Damian Milton's work.
Now, there's even more.
https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2025-63789-001.html

Comments

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

https://reframingautism.org.au/miltons-double-empathy-problem-a-summary-for-non-academics/ may be helpful for background reading about autistic Theory of Mind and why many nonautistic people can't guess what we're thinking and feeling, and thus lack empathy for us.

running2staysane.bsky.social•28 days ago

Can I message you re this. Linked in with a presumption that my asd, pda child NEEDS & it's in his best interests to be in mainst. ream to engage with neurological peers to promote his academic & social growth 🙄 we shall try to ignore the inherent ableism...

annmemmott.bsky.social•28 days ago

Alas, with situations here, not in a position to give individual advice - but I'd recommend looking at the work of Dr Ruth Moyse on this. Or contact the AT-Autism team. Both readily findable with a search.

running2staysane.bsky.social•28 days ago

Fab thank you, will look them up.

drruthmoyse.bsky.social•28 days ago

Thanks, Ann.

Sarah, you can email me via [email protected], if easier.

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

It's a bit technical, but the summary is (paraphrased) 'We haven't even worked out what we're testing, so how the heck are we deciding that autistic people don't have it?'
The team note that nonautistic people are usually rubbish at working out what we're thinking, too (see Double Empathy Theory)../

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

So, who has a 'theory of mind' problem? Us, them, both?

Both. Arguably.

But because there's more nonautistic people, we're seen as the ones with the 'problem'.
https://x.com/AnnMemmott/status/1233313855213907974 is a link to The Old Place and my example of how testing for this may go wrong. (Sally-Anne test).

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

Because some won't visit that place/aren't on my page there, I'll screenshot the thread, below. It created quite a bit of discussion. And one or two hard stares from the Professors, but you can't please everyone, eh.

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

Continuation of that thread from The Other Place, re the Sally-Anne test for autistic children.

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

The last bit of that thread from The Other Place, on the Sally-Anne test for Theory of Mind for autistic children.

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

I could expand my list of concerns to things temporal; we expect the autistic child to give answers, in mouth-words, right here & now.
Suppose they need thinking time?
Suppose they can't use mouth-words?
Suppose they just don't want to answer?
Suppose they don't trust the adult enough to answer?/

this1wierdgirl.bsky.social•53 days ago

Maybe Sally has lots of marbles at home and likes to share them and doesn't care if someone else has one of them.

jubjef.bsky.social•53 days ago

I’m so bad at knowing what other people think, if they don’t tell me. I don’t even know that I would have assumed the marble was stolen. I think I’d have been mostly confused what you want me to do about it - the researcher has the dolls, the marbles. They clearly know but aren’t sharing 😂

trashgoblin.seeks.quest•53 days ago

If you handed me two dolls and said their names are Sally and Anne my first comment would almost certainly be along the lines of 'she doesn't look like a Sally, I'll name her Jane' or something.

And probably fail instantly.

silvaro1969.bsky.social•53 days ago

Autistics communicate what we are feeling and thinking just fine in literal language. Neurotypicals hide the existence of innuendo and allegory from us, don't teach it, and do not share what is said in it. Through no stretch of the imagination can this be an autistic problem.

isabellefk.bsky.social•53 days ago

Thanks for sharing this! 🙏

semilocon.bsky.social•53 days ago

I'd say a ton of autistics are actually very adapted to understanding others, stemming from a lifetime of abuse for misreading people.

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

Arguably so.
Autistic people who often apparently have such good masking skills that diagnostic teams can't spot us.... whilst simultaneously having no theory of mind to work out what others would expect to see...
Mmm....

autisticwriter.bsky.social•52 days ago

Thanks for sharing, Ann. Really appreciate your work getting this kind of information out to us.

eltee7x-war.bsky.social•53 days ago

Which makes you wonder on how many other issues, non autistic related, they are just plain wrong in their judgment.

gekkotoes.bsky.social•52 days ago

📌

urgocakelord.bsky.social•52 days ago

My nephew answered every question in his first assessment session with the two words - 'lemon meringue', at varying volumes.
I don't think they bothered with the Sally/Ann or Smarties tube tests for him... 😂

urgocakelord.bsky.social•52 days ago

His older brother, also autistic, harrumphed loudly and turned his back on the assessor when she asked about his feelings and emotions.

Both boys would annually bait the school photographer, too.

You have to grasp that others have independent thought to manage to be that annoying.🤷😂

squizzradical.bsky.social•52 days ago

The myth of lack of Theory of Mind for autistic people needs to die.

trashgoblin.seeks.quest•53 days ago

I have never heard that theory before, and I'm heading for 40.

I'm HYPER AWARE of other people's minds and opinions, always have been.

What I don't understand is why a condition described as a spectrum keeps getting labelled in such black or white terms.

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

You ask a very good question there. Teams that keep saying, "If you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person', also often try to claim that we are all exactly the same.
It's quite extraordinary, isn't it.

trashgoblin.seeks.quest•53 days ago

And yet if a neuro-normative sat down with any autistic individual and asked them if they knew of any other autistic people that are similar to them... I'd imagine they'd get a negative response 99/100.

It's logical, the brain has too many variables. Of course we're all different.

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

Agreed. Every person has their own personality, their own past experiences, their own ability to communicate via particular methods, their own sensory needs, etc. All of it impacts which answers are given, and how, and when.

trashgoblin.seeks.quest•53 days ago

To me it seems that neuro-normatives can see that we don't think in the same way that they do, so it's just assumed that we don't think....

Yet we're told that we only see things in black or white...

Well if I can understand how you think, even if I disagree, but you can't understand how I think..

trashgoblin.seeks.quest•53 days ago

This is the crux of many of my rants...

People are quick to label and assume, and even quicker to dismiss any information that counters their initial assumptions.

Baffles me. And I'm likely baffled by that because of my autism stating how illogical the process is.

And apparently that's bad.

nxptvne.bsky.social•53 days ago

Also hyper aware! It’s so annoying how people conveniently forget that autism is a spectrum when it comes to things that directly involve interaction with neurotypicals. Suddenly they expect all of us to interact and communicate in the exact same way.

trashgoblin.seeks.quest•53 days ago

...and I would.

If they would communicate and interact in a way that is logical and fit in to their many social regulations that they tell us we need to follow.

Then spend their entire adult lives explaining why we shouldn't follow those social regulations...

Consistency, people.

autistrain.bsky.social•52 days ago

A part is power over human. Autistics are highly marginalized and some have build carrier and more on them. Another one is that, as the article shows us, some made statement on autism without knowing or doing enough researches. The more we investigate, the more we see it coming.

autistrain.bsky.social•52 days ago

Also, we hear more from autistic voices and academics. What quite change how we see autism.

commanderpoyo.bsky.social•52 days ago

Find it pretty fucking stupid they never seem to do testing like this with autistic adults. Very frustrating

fustbariclation.bsky.social•52 days ago

It's interesting that other possibilities aren't considered.

One obvious one is poor eyesight - it obviously doesn't account for everybody, but, if somebody can't see faces unless they're very close, it's unlikely the ability to recognise expressions will develop normally.

peebeejaybee.bsky.social•53 days ago

I'm an ethnographic discourse analyst by training, so not at all a psychologist. But what always strikes me about a lot of the psych research I've read in this area is that they take extraordinarily subjective & contestable notions as objective fact, instead of interrogating them

#BuiltOnSand

annmemmott.bsky.social•53 days ago

Yes, 100 years of research and we're still not defining even the basics of what we mean, a lot of the time. It's not good.

drspider666.bsky.social•52 days ago

I'm in a humanities discipline dismissed as 'soft' because it involves subjective interpretation, and yet I read psych papers on autism & think 'am I missing something? Or are researchers in this area both *shockingly* unscientific AND lacking even first-year undergrad grasp of philosophy of mind?'

annmemmott.bsky.social•52 days ago

Good questions. Philosophy isn't my field, but even I know more about Theory of Mind and its philosophical discussions than most of those writing about it for autism, it would appear. It's a fascinating and nuanced area of enquiry with no defined answers as yet.

peebeejaybee.bsky.social•52 days ago

Hardly surprising Ann, if they can't ask the right bleedin questions! 😉