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SUMMARY:&quot\;Theory of Mind and Peer Relationships in late childhood and
  adolescence&quot\; - Dr Claire Hughes\, Centre for Family Research\, Univ
 ersity of Cambridge
DTSTART:20101112T130000Z
DTEND:20101112T140000Z
UID:TALK25363@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Teresa Tavassoli
DESCRIPTION:Advanced theory of mind tasks\, such as Happé's Strange Stori
 es task or Corcoran's Hinting task successfully discriminate between clini
 cal and typically developing groups\, but have yet to be applied to examin
 e variation in typically developing children's social understanding and co
 mpetence.  Our first study (N = 470) used two groups of children (British 
 and Italian 11- to 13-year olds\, matched for age\, gender and comprehensi
 on of control vignettes) to examine links between theory of mind task perf
 ormance and multi-informant measures of social inclusion. For both samples
 \, scores on each theory of mind task were associated with self- and peer-
 reported social inclusion. However\, these results may simply reflect gene
 ral effects of verbal ability\, as both tasks place strong demands on verb
 al comprehension.  Thus in our second study we used clips from a classic s
 ilent movie to develop a new\, less verbal\, test of theory of mind\, whic
 h was administered (alongside the Strange Stories task) to two different a
 ge groups of British children (10- and 17-year-olds\; N > 200)\, who also 
 completed tests of verbal ability and executive function.  This study show
 ed: (i) a clear age-related improvement in theory of mind performance\, ev
 en when effects of verbal ability and executive function were taken into a
 ccount\; and (ii) robust associations between self-reported social inclusi
 on and scores on both theory of mind tasks\, with performance silent movie
  task showing especially strong links with children's social success at sc
 hool. Our next step is to assess whether performance on the silent movies 
 task also predicts social success among young people with Autism Spectrum 
 Disorder.  
LOCATION:Large Meeting Room (groundfloor)\, Douglas House\, 18 B\, Trumpin
 gton Road
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