THEORY OF THE MIND
     Theory of the mind is the capacity we have to understand mental states such as:believes, feelings, hope, and intention. This thoery of the mind enables us to understand the behavior people display is as a result of their inner feelings, belives and intensions.
     The absence of the ability to understand what people know, think or feel might be the root of most difficulties people with ASD  have in communication and social interaction.
      The central symptom of autism (anomalies in social interaction, communication and pretense) could be explained by specific deficit of Theory of Mind. Although autistic children have cognitive performance, they lack the ability to understand false belief task. This lead to the conclusion that a major component of autism is a specific deficit in mindreading, and not impairment of general cognitive abilities.For many of those autism, mindblindness or lack of theory of mind creates major barriers to communication and social interaction.
       ASD is one of the main areas of the application of theory of mind. This is because autism is one of the most severe cognitive impairment that can occur during the early stages of development.
        Someone who has a full grasp of the Thoery of Mind will immediately know that Sally will look where she last left the ball. She does not know that the ball has been moved. A person with poor Thoery of Mind skills will believe that Sally will look for the ball in the box, because they do not fully grasp that Sally will not know what Ann has done.
       This has lead many proffessionals to say, as ina quote from Stephen Edelson Ph.D, "many autistic individuals do not understand that people have thier own plans, thoughts, and point of view".
     Given the findings in the aforementioned studies, theory of mind tests do have a reliable and valid place in assessing developmentally delayed children. However, theory of mind does not address the reasons for the varying degree of severity in autism and only address the triad of impairments.