Instruments for assessing theory of mind in children

Abstract

This research promotes a review of the literature with the objective of surveying the instruments of evaluation of the theory of mind in children. For this, throughout this paper, we sought to present the concept of Social Cognition, a set of mental operations associated with the perception and with the interpretation of intentions, dispositions and actions of others, as well as the orientation of responses and social behaviors of the individual, and even in this broader concept, the Theory of Mind, the capacity of the individual to attribute to the other a different mental state from his, a fundamental ability to the coordination of social skills that causes a significant reflex in the quality of life and in the psychosocial functioning of the human being. Such ability develops throughout childhood, since studies point to different levels of understanding of mental state. The methodological principle used was the bibliography research. From the investigation it was verified that an evaluation of the Theory of Mind implies the consideration of the whole scope of this construct, involving tasks composed by easier items that only require the understanding of the desire or the thought of the other, up to more complex items that require understanding of false belief in more complex situations. In this sense, there are different tests and tasks used to evaluate the TOM, allowing to know the performance of children in different stages of development until the performance of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other conditions in which there are changes in the Theory of Mind.