Jean Piaget Developmental Theory Essay

As children begin to move away from egocentric perspective (the belief that the world and everything therein centers around them), they begin to develop a theory of mind. This allows them to understand other’s perspective, thoughts, and feelings. However, a theory of mind appears to be lacking in those on the Autism Spectrum. What does this mean for them and what cognitive theories can be applied to this deficit in both child and those on the Autism spectrum.
For Piaget, the perspective a child held was a central concept of his developmental theory. The early, developing child olds a perspective that he is the central figure and is unable to understand other people have differing beliefs than his own, a process Piaget referred to as decentering. Piaget asserted his begins to change as the child enters the Concrete Operational Stage, where they are able to assume
the perspectives of others. Closely linked to this, Piaget and Inhelder studied a child’s ability to understand and represent visual perspective. A paradigm was designed to measure the child’s ability to generate a mental representation of another person’s perspective through what is called a false belief. What are false beliefs? According to Perner et al, “false beliefs vis-à-vis reality are clear cases of a difference between truth-incompatible perspectives. That’s why these beliefs are called false” (2002).
The classic paradigm established to show a lack of perspective on the part of the child is the false belief paradigm. In it, typically two dolls are presented to the child. In addition to the dolls, there will be basket and a box. One doll will “place” an object inside the basket and leave the room. In the doll’s absence, the other dolls will “move” the object from the basket to the box. Upon returning, the child will have to predict which container the doll will look inside of. If the child possesses a theory of mind, he will automatically understand the absent doll has no way of knowing the other doll moved the object, hence he will guess the doll will select looking in the basket. However, if the child has yet to develop a theory of mind, he will assume he and the absent doll possess the same knowledge, therefore selecting the box because he witnessed the object being moved from one container to the other.
For those on the Autism spectrum, the lack of a mature theory of mind represents one of the primary deficits associated with the diagnosis.
Those with an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis are unable to anticipate or understand other’s thoughts, responses, and actions. Thus, this deficit greatly impacts their ability to initiate and maintain social relationships. For instance, if you are to approach a someone on the high functioning end of the Autism spectrum and speak to him, you would note there is no usage or understanding of metaphor. A common salutation is, “hey, what’s up?” and the response to you would be “the ceiling.” This very literal interpretation harkens back to the Mutual Exclusivity theory Perner et al discussed, which states for children who have yet to develop a theory of mind, each object or thought has a specific meaning and description, there are no subtleties or nuances to them. This is exemplified in the false belief task, where the object is placed into the box and the child witnesses this, so therefore the absent doll must know it too, according to the perspective of the
child.