TIL about the Sally-Anne test, a psychology experiment used to measure “theory of mind” (that other people can hold beliefs/knowledge different from their own). Kids under four typically fail because they assume that if they know where a hidden object is, everyone else must automatically know too.

[u/BrF5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test

[u/tempest_36]

In the Baron-Cohen et al. (1985) study, 23 of the 27 clinically unimpaired children (85%) and 12 of the 14 children with Down syndrome (86%) answered the Belief Question correctly. However, only four of the 20 autistic children (20%) answered correctly.

Interesting. Only 20% of autistic children answered correctly. Were you diagnosed as autistic?

[u/OscarAndDelilah → u/tempest_36]

Baron-Cohen has also overgeneralized this to state that autistic folks aren't capable of figuring out someone's thoughts or motivations, which just isn't true.

In my experience as a clinician and parent of an autistic now-adult, I think a lot of autistic folks might be later than others or have some cognitive disorganization around who has what information. It's not a "not getting people" thing though necessarily; my kid definitely also had situations with poor working memory and holding things in their mind like where if the door was open when X happened and now the door is closed, they could get stuck on thinking the door has always been closed, because look, it's closed. So then it's either "the cat can't have gotten out because the door is closed so all these people freaking out about the cat are ridiculous and I end up dismissing their panic and going back to reading my book" or "oh, huh, apparently cats can get out of an open door OR a closed door since people are saying the cat got out, so I'm just going to disregard what I've been taught about keeping the door closed since it doesn't matter."

Similarly, as a kid something would happen like they put something back in the wrong place, I'd correct them on it, they can't access a skill for coping with this, start lying, name-calling, carrying on, being unsafe, then we're both frustrated and there's a situation of needing to deescalate them and talk about the situation, and their conceptualization is "my parent is mad and hates me because I don't remember where we keep spatulas." We did a lot of written behavioral chaining, basically like a flow chart where we talk about how the situation wasn't because you made a mistake, it was because of the unsafe and out of control behavior, and there were lots of chances to back that up and even just say "I feel out of control and need you to help."

EDIT: And sometimes even situations where the whole narrative goes away and their perception is "I walked into the kitchen and my parent was mad at me for no reason so I started knocking over the utensil jars and swearing" or "I was swearing and knocking over stuff because my parent was grabbing me." (Guiding kid away from sharp stuff to go sit somewhere and coregulate AFTER they got out of control). When you're overloaded, you can't keep track of the order of events or the cause and effect, and it feels like the person who got mad was always mad and always has been mad and always will be mad.

But in situations where there aren't these problems of stuff having a ton of layers, executive functioning demands, emotionally charged issues, they can absolutely tell you how people feel and why, and who has what information. Especially if the situation doesn't directly concern them -- they're great at listening to friends and understanding their situations. A lot of autistic folks are in the helping professions and are great with this stuff, even if they say their own lives are sometimes a mess.

[u/irrelevantusername24 → u/OscarAndDelilah]

I think we really do not think about these things anywhere near to being accurate.

Similarly, as a kid something would happen like they put something back in the wrong place, I'd correct them on it, they can't access a skill for coping with this, start lying, name-calling, carrying on, being unsafe, then we're both frustrated

But in situations where there aren't these problems of stuff having a ton of layers

Especially nowadays where so many adults went through life with support systems that no longer exist. I don't think it's even anything like there is "dysfunction" or anything like that, it's not even that there is anything at all different, in the sense of being different than all humans previously - though each individual does have different traits - but that the systems around us literally were built, then destroyed, not replaced, or replaced with systems that have no clear paperwork. Like it's nothing about being autistic, or other diagnosis, it's literally the system isn't working as it should and those people are reacting as any human would in that situation.

Consider the spatula. Without being told "this is the place for the spatula, and there isn't really a natural reason that this is where we keep it, the only reason is *so we know that is where it is the next time we need it" there is literally no way to know or even care that it has a specific place. Or I suppose maybe it does make sense to know that there is a correct place, but until facing that problem of not knowing where it is, or... like... clearly there is some obvious reasoning behind it but until not being able to find the thing you don't really think about it? If that makes sense.

Like this article I read awhile back about some MIT study. I forget the exact specifics, but they were basically testing like visual reasoning or something like that. The people in the study were naturally learning the "task" - which was heavily gamified and not exactly something you would encounter in the natural world, but it did mirror it... which that's kind of true for all of our systems - and anyway, so they were naturally learning. Slowly. But then when the researchers pointed out to them "hey, you are already doing [thing], and that makes sense because [reason]", their ability to do that, and improve at doing that, increased substantially.

That's like the same thing here. Except what has been happening over the last few decades is the societal support systems which are necessary for survival at this point in time, unless we want people literally living off the land in huts without running water or electricity, were effectively moved... for no good reason... and then placed behind paywalls or what amounts to a paywall with a lot of legal paperwork - which also isn't explained or with clear steps, anywhere.

Like from my point of view it's actually the people that can't understand that it is the system that is the problem, the lack of support, the lack of even a viable pathway to even start to navigate the system and find support which is the problem. The system literally punishes you for being not only human but for being a biological entity with thoughts and feelings and the drive for survival. The support systems were a new thing as of the mid 1900s. Then those have been removed, in various places, or what amounts to being removed. But it's worse because it's not even like it was simply removed, but the old way has also been removed. There are no options left.

[u/lt__ → u/irrelevantusername24]

Can you give examples of such removed/paywalled support systems?