Department of Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, PO Box: 1983969411, Tehran, Iran.
University of Regensburg, Germany.
Res Dev Disabil. 2021 Jul;114:103960. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2021.103960. Epub 2021 Apr 23.
Children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience impaired social cognition.
In the present study, we aimed to investigate the relation between visual-spatial abilities and theory of mind in children and adolescents with and without ASD.
Forty-five boys from the age of 7 to 17 years with ASD and thirty-one aged matched boys without ASD participated and completed the test of intrinsic stable visual-spatial ability (test of visual perceptual skill-revised), intrinsic dynamic visual-spatial ability (animal mental rotation test), and theory of mind test (TOMT).
Results showed that relative to boys without ASD, boys with ASD had a lower performance in theory of mind and intrinsic visual-spatial abilities. Secondly, theory of mind correlated with visual-spatial abilities in boys with ASD. Theory of mind for first and second order beliefs was predicted by the intrinsic dynamic visual abilities, whereas the theory of mind ability of emotion recognition was predicted by visual-spatial static abilities. In children without ASD, theory of mind for emotion recognition was predicted by intrinsic visual-spatial ability and the theory of mind for first order beliefs.
Theory of mind can be predicted by visual-spatial abilities in children and adolescents with ASD. Future studies should investigate the role of different types of intrinsic dynamic visual-spatial abilities (e.g., egocentric vs. object-based mental rotation tasks) in relation to different aspects of theory of mind in children and adolescents with autism.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童和青少年通常存在社交认知障碍。
本研究旨在探讨自闭症和非自闭症儿童和青少年的视觉空间能力与心理理论之间的关系。
45 名 7 至 17 岁的自闭症男孩和 31 名年龄匹配的非自闭症男孩参加并完成了内在稳定视觉空间能力测试（视觉感知技能修订版测试）、内在动态视觉空间能力测试（动物心理旋转测试）和心理理论测试（TOMT）。
结果表明，与非自闭症男孩相比，自闭症男孩在心理理论和内在视觉空间能力方面表现较差。其次，自闭症男孩的心理理论与视觉空间能力相关。第一和第二级信念的心理理论由内在动态视觉能力预测，而情绪识别的心理理论能力则由视觉空间静态能力预测。在非自闭症儿童中，情绪识别的心理理论由内在视觉空间能力和第一级信念的心理理论预测。
自闭症儿童和青少年的心理理论可以由视觉空间能力预测。未来的研究应该调查不同类型的内在动态视觉空间能力（例如，自我中心与基于对象的心理旋转任务）在自闭症儿童和青少年心理理论的不同方面的作用。
