Factors influencing the development of a theory of mind in blind children

This study explored the development of a theory of mind in blind children a ged 5 to 12 years. A total of 23 children with severe visual impairment or total blindness in three age groups (6, 8 and 12 years) were tested on a ba ttery of four false belief rests involving changed locations and misleading appearances. They also took a standard test of Level 2 visual perspective- taking. A majority of 6-year-old blind children failed the false belief tes ts, and though performance improved with age, significant difficulties pers isted in the 8-year-olds whose performance did not exceed chance on most ta sks. However, the 12-year-olds displayed an understanding of mental states char was near ceiling with 70% of them passing all four tests of false beli ef and 90% passing at least three. The results of a multiple regression ana lysis confirmed that whereas increasing age significantly predicted gains i n false belief understanding, the child's level of visual impairment (total ly blind or severely visually impaired) did not influence false belief perf ormance. Accurate Level 2 visual perspective-taking was present in the vast majority of these children from the age of 6 years, so that the difficulti es observed with theory of mind concepts could not be attributed to an inab ility to understand other people's perceptions. In contrast to previous research, the blind children in the present sample found false belief tests involving che changed location of objects just as difficult as those involving misleading containers. There were similarly no significant effects of gender, or of the presence or absence of a physical or learning disability, upon false belief performance.