Upon viewing this video, I realized that there was so much more to consider than was previously presented to us in class in terms of theory of mind. The original video which we watched was very brief and did not do justice to the incites which Uta Frith has been able to provide to so many people through her research over the years. The depth in which she covers this topic this time around has provided many more things to consider. Now while originally we only discussed how the theory of mind or "mentalizing" effects the students abilities to see things from another persons point of view, we now must take into consideration how this lack of mentalizing skills actually effects how the person views there own internal states and intentions. I found it very interesting how this research was applied to how a person with ASD has difficulty identifying their own internal states. I know that from my experience, which I am sure many of you share as well, that I have seen many children who have some very troubling problem behaviors because of internal states which they cannot make known to others. This inability to express these internal states and emotions can make it very difficult for providers to take care of the students needs and can often turn it into a guessing game. With that being said, I know that while we stress teaching these children new skills to help make up for these for these deficits, I have found in many settings with children of all different ages and abilities, that it is VERY difficult to teach such a set of skills. These extreme difficulty that educators and clinicians have been running into I believe helps to support Uta Frith's claim that there is indeed some differences in the hard wiring of those on the spectrum. This difference in wiring has been demonstrated in other studies as well. One such demonstration of these drastic differences, though it has to do with language rather than mentalizing, can be found in this excerpt from 60 min:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_8b7PgnNQQ
(The clip starts at about 9 and a half minutes in, though you all may find the portion on the iPad apps for autism prior to it very interesting as well).
The visual representation in this clip, I think, helps to show just how different, not bad just different, people with autism are wired than a neurotypical individual. I would be really curious to see further imaging studies regarding other areas of deficit, such as mentalizing, on people with autism in the future.
Now in regards to how all of these things affect assessment, I think that this video stressed just how important it is to take into consideration these differences when performing assessments with any one with developmental impairments and especially those with autism. These differences in how a person processes information and how they view the world as a hold should help us in better developing the tools we use for the assessments. I am a firm believer that all of these children have so much potential and am astounded by the random bits of knowledge that they have acquired over the years. I believe that many of our assessment tools, while effective in picking up on many deficits, also fail to identify many of the strengths that they do possess which could help us develop effective plans for their futures. I believe that if some tools were created that took the point of view of the autistic individual we may be able to better understand how it is that they learn best and what tools would help them the most in the future. After all, it is our goal as educators and providers to promote learning in each of our students and play upon their strengths to build up their weaknesses so that they can be as best prepared for whatever future lies ahead as possible.
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