Abstract
Objective:
In this article, we aimed to review the theory of mind, executive functions and weak central coherence diffi culties in autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
Method:
We browsed the pubmed search engine by using keywords “Autism, autistic spectrum disorders, theory of mind, social cognition, executive functions, central coherence, weak central coherence” and extended the search by scanning related articles, reviewing collected data.
Results:
A wide range of studies with different methods from relatively easy false belief test and deception tests to more complicated ToM tasks (Strange Stories Test, Reading The Mind in the Voice/Films/Eyes tests) were with defi cits in the ASD group. It is well documented that ASD group has some executive function defi cits like defi cits in cognitive fl exibility, planning, generativitiy, and spatial working memory. Along with these defi cits, ASD group performed better on the visuospatial tasks that evaluated the weak central coherence than controls while they showed a global advantage on a hierarchization task (e.g. Navons’ hierarchical fi gures) similar to the controls; however they had defi cits in the verbal-semantic fi eld.
Discussion:
Identifi cation of the specifi c cognitive profi les in ASD is important since it is believed that it shall have an impact on discovering the responsible genetic factors as well as contributing to aproppriate educational approaches. However it is also clear that attempting to explain ASD signs with only one theory will fail inevitably since ASD is an also heterogeneous group within itself.
Keywords: Autism spectrum disorders, theory of mind, executive functions, weak central coherence
