- Theses and placement reports Faculty of Arts

Transcription

Reality versus thoughts: the understanding of
Theory of Mind and mental language in TD
adolescents and adolescents with SLI or ASD
Research Master Thesis Linguistics
Language & Cognition
Liset Rouweler (2017733)
April 2016
Supervisors: Dr. W. Tops & Prof. P. Hendriks
Reality versus thoughts: the understanding of
Theory of Mind and mental language in TD
adolescents and adolescents with SLI or ASD
Liset Louise Maria Rouweler
Reality versus thoughts: The understanding of Theory of Mind and mental language in TD adolescents and adolescents with SLI or ASD
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
5
ABSTRACT
6
SAMENVATTING
7
1. INTRODUCTION
8
2. BACKGROUND
10
2.1 Language and Theory of Mind
10
2.2 Development of Theory of Mind in TD children
13
2.3 Theory of Mind in clinical groups
15
2.3.1 Theory of Mind and SLI
15
2.3.2 Theory of Mind and ASD
16
2.4 Current study
18
2.4.1 Aim of the Research
18
2.4.2 Research Questions and Hypotheses
19
3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Participants
22
22
3.1.1 TD adolescents
22
3.1.2 Adolescents with ASD
23
3.1.3 Adolescents with SLI
24
3.2 Materials
24
3.2.1 Factive and non-factive mental state verb task
25
3.2.2 Memory for complements in daily situations
27
3.2.3 Bake sale stories task
31
3
3.3 Research procedure
4. RESULTS
33
35
4.1 Descriptive statistics
35
4.2 Comparisons between groups
37
4.2.1 Mental state verb comprehension
37
4.2.2 Sentential complement comprehension
40
4.2.3 False-belief understanding
41
4.3 Comparisons within groups
41
4.4 Correlations
42
5. DISCUSSION
5.1 ToM understanding in adolescence
44
44
5.1.1 ToM in TD adolescents
44
5.1.2 ToM in adolescents with SLI
46
5.1.3 ToM in adolescents with ASD
46
5.2 Mental state verb comprehension and the relation with ToM
47
5.3 Sentential complement comprehension and the relation with ToM
48
5.4 Conclusions
49
5.5 Limitations
51
5.6 Future directions
51
6. REFERENCES
53
7. APPENDICES
58
7.1 Mental state verb factive and non-factive task
58
7.2 Memory for complements in daily situations
63
7.3 Bake sale stories
70
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am very grateful to my thesis supervisors Dr. Wim Tops and Prof. Petra Hendriks for their
great input and valuable feedback. Through their critical look, they supported me in my search
for the right ideas, questions and solutions.
I would also like to thank Dr. Bart Hollebrandse and Jessica Overweg for providing me with the
bake sale stories task, Dr. Hannah de Mulder and Ellen van Boggelen - Heutink for the memory
for complements task and Dr. George Spanoudis for the mental state verb factive and non-factive
task. Moreover, I would like to thank the Dr. J. de Graafschool, het Zernike College and De
Mast, and more specifically their students, for their great participation in my study.
A special thank you to my dear friends Bob Holland and Zheng Ng for reading my thesis and for
their support during the process of writing. They both provided me with very useful feedback,
which encouraged me to keep writing.
From the day I started my new life in Groningen as a fresh, 18 year old student linguistics, my
parents provided me with continuous support and love. During the 5,5 years of being a student
linguistics, and especially during the process of writing this research master thesis, their endless
believe in me has never changed. Now, April 2016, it is time to finally graduate and to be an
adult. This accomplishment would not have been possible without you. Thank you.
Liset Louise Maria Rouweler
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ABSTRACT
Comprehension of mental state verbs and sentential complements are argued to relate closely to
Theory of Mind (ToM) both in typically developing children (TD), and in children with specific
language impairment (SLI) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Astington & Baird, 2005;
Miller, 2004; Ziatas et al., 1998). However, up until now it is unknown whether both factors still
show a relationship with ToM after childhood, more specifically during adolescence (13 until 18
years). Furthermore, literature shows that there are clear differences between TD children and
children with ASD or SLI on ToM understanding. In this case, children with ASD or SLI
perform significantly worse on ToM tasks. With this study we also aim to find out whether these
differences are still present in adolescence.
We tested 22 TD adolescents, 23 adolescents with SLI and 21 adolescents with ASD on a mental
state verb comprehension task, a sentential complement comprehension task and a verbal firstorder and second-order ToM task. Results showed that adolescents with SLI performed worse on
the mental state verb task in comparison with the two other groups. No group differences were
found on the other two tasks. Moreover, no strong correlations were found between mental state
verb comprehension, sentential complement comprehension and ToM understanding. Based on
these results, it was suggested that there is no strong relation between mental state verb
comprehension or sentential complement comprehension and ToM in adolescence.
Developmental differences that were present in childhood seem to disappear in adolescence.
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SAMENVATTING
Het begrip van mentale werkwoorden en ingebedde zinnen wordt verondersteld een nauwe
relatie te hebben met Theory of Mind (ToM) bij zowel typisch ontwikkelende kinderen (TD) als
bij kinderen met een specifieke taalstoornis (SLI) of autisme spectrum stoornis (ASS) (Astington
& Baird, 2005; Miller, 2004; Ziatas et al., 1998). Het is echter niet bekend of beide factoren nog
steeds een nauwe relatie vertonen met ToM in de periode van adolescentie (13 tot 18 jaar).
Verder worden in de kindertijd duidelijke verschillen gevonden tussen TD kinderen en kinderen
met SLI of ASS bij het begrijpen van ToM. Kinderen met SLI of ASS presteren significant
minder goed op ToM taken. Met deze studie willen we onderzoeken of deze verschillen nog
steeds aanwezig zijn in adolescentie.
In deze studie hebben we 21 TD jongeren, 23 jongeren met SLI en 21 jongeren met ASS getest
op een mentale werkwoorden begripstaak, een ingebedde zinnen begripstaak en een verbale
eerste en tweede orde ToM taak. De resultaten tonen aan dat jongeren met SLI het significant
slechter doen dan de jongeren uit de andere twee groepen op de mentale werkwoorden taak.
Geen groepsverschillen waren gevonden binnen de ingebedde zinnen taak en de false belief taak.
Verder zijn er geen correlaties gevonden tussen de taken en het begrip van ToM. Gebaseerd op
deze resultaten valt niet te concluderen dat er een sterke relatie is tussen het begrip van mentale
werkwoorden of het begrip van ingebedde zinnen en ToM in adolescentie. De
ontwikkelingsverschillen die in de kindertijd zijn aangetoond, lijken te verdwijnen in
adolescentie.
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1. INTRODUCTION
‘A student, aged 13 years and diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), was confronted
with the sentence ‘I think (that) it is raining outside’, while it was not raining outside. We
wanted to explain that someone can think it is raining outside, even though it is not true. This
student did not understand this concept; he did not realize that there can be a discrepancy
between someone’s thoughts and reality.’
In this previous example, the reader is introduced with someone who fails to understand Theory
of Mind (ToM). The term ToM refers to the ability of humans to represent mental states of
themselves and others, such as beliefs, intentions and desires (Premack and Woodruff, 1978).
ToM helps us to understand that other individuals have different beliefs, intentions and desires
about the world and that they act upon these (Wellman, 1990). There is an extensive and rapidly
growing body of literature on ToM. Numerous of these studies suggest a strong relationship
between ToM and language (Astington & Baird, 2005; De Villiers & Pyers, 2002; see Wellman,
Cross & Watson, 2001, for a review). Specifically, understanding and developing ToM is
associated with the comprehension of mental state verbs and sentential complements. In this
case, some researchers argue for an important relationship between mental state verbs and ToM,
while other researchers argue for an important relationship between sentential complements and
ToM (Astington & Baird, 2005; De Villiers & Pyers, 2002; Ziatas, Dunkin & Pratt, 1998).
The development of mental state verbs, sentential complements and ToM is not a natural process
for all children. It has been demonstrated in various studies that children with specific language
impairment (SLI) or children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show difficulties with one
or several of these aspects (Spanoudis, Natsopoulos & Panayiotou, 2007; Tager-Flusberg &
Joseph, 2005). Children with SLI or ASD usually fall behind in ToM understanding compared to
typically developing children (TD) (Miller 2004; Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2005). The main
reason why children with SLI demonstrate difficulties in ToM understanding is their problems
with language. For children with ASD it is argued, however, that language can help with the
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understanding of ToM (Miller, 2004; Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2005).
It is without a doubt that much more is known about ToM understanding and the relationship
between language and ToM in typical and a-typical groups of children compared to adolescents.
Up until now it is not completely clear how TD adolescents, but also adolescents with SLI or
ASD, perform on ToM tasks and whether there is a relation between ToM understanding and
language in adolescence. A new study within this direction could extend our knowledge about
ToM understanding and the relationship with language.
Therefore, the main focus of our study is twofold. Firstly, we focus on the relationship between
mental state verb comprehension, sentential complement comprehension and ToM in
adolescence. Both linguistic factors have shown to be related to ToM understanding in
childhood, but so far it remains unclear whether one or both relate to ToM understanding in
adolescence. The second purpose of our study is examining the potential differences on ToM
understanding between TD adolescents and adolescents with ASD or SLI. Previous literature
showed clear differences between the groups on ToM understanding in childhood. TD children
outperform children with ASD or SLI on ToM tasks. An effective way to measure the ToM
understanding of our groups of adolescents is false belief, which is the ability to distinguish
between true and false beliefs (Astington & Baird, 2005). Obviously, people’s understanding of
ToM is broader than only understanding false beliefs, but the false belief task is most commonly
used to measure ToM understanding (De Mulder, 2011).
Before presenting the methodology and results of our study, we will present the main theories
and literature that studied the relationship between language and ToM, the development of ToM
and ToM in ASD and SLI in chapter two. Also, our aim and research questions will be presented
in this chapter. In the third chapter, the methodology of the study will be explained, followed by
the results in chapter four. These results will be discussed and concluded in chapter five.
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2. BACKGROUND
2.1 Language and Theory of Mind
For the last three decades there has been a constant interest in the relationship between language
and ToM (Astington & Baird, 2005; De Villiers & Pyers, 2002; Wellman, Cross & Watson,
2001, for a review). It is without a doubt that some kind of relationship between ToM and
language exists, but to this day, the precise nature of this relationship remains unclear. Some
researchers argue that ToM is crucial in order to develop language, which is the ToM first
hypothesis (Babar, Lang & Ortlieb, 2013; Ziatas, Dunkin & Pratt, 1998). These researchers
propose that if someone has a more advanced understanding of the mental states of other people,
it has a positive effect on language development, in particular on those areas that show a relation
with ToM understanding (Babar et al., 2013; Ziatas et al., 1998). Other researchers argue that
language predicts ToM performance, the language first hypothesis (see Astington & Baird, 2005,
for a collection of papers on this topic; De Villiers & Pyers, 2002). These researchers argue that
general language ability, as well as specific semantic and syntactic components, need to be
acquired in order to develop ToM skills (Astington & Baird, 2005; De Mulder, 2011; De Villiers
& Pyers, 2002). Following this idea, some studies have claimed that the relationship between
language and ToM only exists for the child during preschool and primary school (Gopnik &
Wellman, 1994), while other studies argue for a relation between language and ToM across the
lifespan (Astington & Jenkins, 1999; Astington & Baird, 2005; De Villiers & Pyers, 2002). A
third group of researchers suggests a two-way relationship between language and ToM, the
bidirectional ToM hypothesis (Slade & Rufmann, 2005; de Mulder, 2011). Slade and Ruffman
(2005) showed the bidirectional relationship between language and ToM in longitudinal study
with 3 and 4 year old children. When Slade and Ruffman first tested the children on several
language and ToM tasks, language seemed to predict ToM understanding, while at the second
moment of testing the relationship seemed the other way around: ToM predicted language
performance. Slade and Ruffman (2005) suggested on the basis of their results that there is a
systematic and alternating interaction between language and ToM.
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Up to this moment it is unclear how language specifically relates to ToM understanding. There
are researchers that argue that general language ability shows the strongest relationship with
ToM understanding (Jenkins & Astington, 1996; Milligan, Astington & Dack, 2007). Jenkins
and Astington (1997) and Milligan et al. (2007) showed high correlations between the general
linguistic competence level of 3 to 5 year old children and ToM scores at a later age.
Furthermore, Hollebrandse, Van Hout and Hendriks (2014) conducted a study with 6-7 year old
children, 8-9 year old children and a group of control adults. All participants were tested on a
second-order non-verbal false belief task and a second-order verbal false belief task. The results
revealed that children were able to pass a second-order verbal false belief task at an earlier age
than a second-order non-verbal false belief task. The authors argue that language supports verbal
reasoning about beliefs, because it helps you to follow different beliefs attributed by people to
other people (Hollebrandse et al., 2014).
Other researchers claim a more specific relationship between language and ToM. One group of
these researchers argues that the semantics of mental state verbs have to be acquired in order to
develop ToM abilities, which is the semantic approach (Bartsch & Wellman, 1995; Spanoudis &
Natsopoulos, 2011; Ziatas et al., 1998). However, the second group of researchers believes that
the syntactic properties of sentential complements have to be understood in order to understand
ToM, which is the syntactic approach (De Villiers & De Villiers, 2002; Tager-Flusberg &
Joseph, 2005).
The semantic approach proposes that the semantic properties of mental state verbs show a close
relationship with ToM development and understanding (Astington & Baird, 2005; Bartsch &
Wellman, 1995; Ziatas et al., 1998). Mental state verbs are verbs that denote inner mental states,
such as know, think, promise, believe, intend and forget, and can be used to describe and
understand someone’s emotional or cognitive condition (Spanoudis & Natsopoulos, 2011).
Mental state verbs are generally considered as linguistically complex and are mostly associated
with semantic properties (Spanoudis et al., 2007). By means of semantics it is possible to make a
distinction between subclasses of mental state verbs (Spanoudis et al., 2007). Mental state verbs
can be divided on the basis of factivity and non-factivity. Factive mental state verbs denote
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factual events that are true, such as know, forget and realize. Non-factive mental state verbs
denote non-factual events that are not necessarily true, such as thoughts (think, believe) and
obligations (agree, promise). The distinction between factive and non-factive events is seen as
meaningful, because it helps you to understand subtle differences between mental states and
differences between true and hypothetical situations (Spanoudis et al., 2007; Ziatas et al., 1998).
Comprehension of mental state verbs enables a person to understand the basics of their own
thoughts, beliefs and feelings, as well as those of others (Babar et al., 2013; Shatz, Wellman &
Silber, 1983; Spanoudis & Natsopoulos, 2011; Ziatas et al., 1998). Therefore, researchers have
claimed the strong relationship between mental state verb comprehension and ToM. Ziatas et al.
(1998) studied the relationship between the mental state verbs know, think and guess on ToM
development in children. The results of the study demonstrated a significant relation between
mental state verbs and ToM understanding.
Other researchers rather search for the relationship between language and ToM in the syntactic
properties of complex sentence structures (De Villiers & Pyers, 2002; De Villiers & De Villiers,
2000). It has been claimed by De Villiers and colleagues that there is one particular construction
that is extremely important for understanding ToM: the sentential complement construction.
They claim that without the understanding of these complex syntactical structures, children will
fail to understand fails belief (De Villiers & Pyers, 2002; De Villiers & De Villiers, 2000).
Sentential complements are complement clauses that serve as the extending component of the
main clause and provide additional information about the main clause (De Villiers & Pyers,
2002). These complex syntactical structures are embedded under the main clause and occur with
mental state verbs like think and know and verbs of communication like say and tell. The
syntactic properties of both verb types are fairly similar, because they both require a sentence as
its complement (Astington & Baird, 2005). Consider the following two examples:
(1) Sophie thinks (that) the florist shop is closed between 6 pm and 8 am.
(2) Sam said (that) the florist shop is closed between 6 pm and 8 am.
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Keeping the examples in mind: without the sentential complement ‘that the florist shop is closed
between 6 pm and 8 am’, the main clause ‘Sophie thinks – Sam said’ only gives us the
information that Sam or Sophie thinks/said something. The sentential complement is embedded
under the main clause ‘Sophie thinks – Sam said’ and demonstrates the content of Sophie’s or
Sam’s mind. Most important about these complex structures is that the whole sentence can still
be true even though the sentential complement is false. The florist shop can have for example
longer or shorter opening hours, but the sentence is true as long as Sophie thinks or Sam says that
(De Mulder, 2011; De Villiers & Pyers, 2002). According to De Mulder, ‘in order to understand
sentential complements, a child is forced to consider the exact nature of mental states and has to
understand that it is possible to have ‘false’ mental states’. Consequently, the capacity to
understand and embed a (possibly) false proposition is what makes the sentential complement
construction an ideal mechanism for representing false beliefs.
De Villiers & Pyers (2002) showed that ‘mastery of sentential complements is a precursor and
possible prerequisite of successful ToM understanding’. Lohman & Tomasello (2003) and Hale
and Tager-Flusberg (2003) demonstrated the importance of knowledge of sentential
complements for ToM in a training study. They demonstrated that when children of 3 years old
were trained on sentential complementation constructions, their false belief understanding also
improved. The children who did not receive this particular training did not improve their false
belief skills.
2.2 Development of Theory of Mind in TD children
ToM is a fascinating ability that develops in various steps. Around the age of 2 years old
children start to acquire lexical terms (happy or sad) that relate to their own mental states (Babar
et al., 2013). After the acquisition of these lexical terms and around the age of 3 years, children
acquire the concept to understand and produce mental state verbs such as know or think
(Astington & Baird, 2005; Babar et al., 2013; Shatz et al., 1983). In the first stage, children use
these verbs to express their own thoughts and feelings, but around the age of 3;5 or 4 years old,
children use these verbs to express the cognitive and emotional state of others (Babar et al.,
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2013). Also, somewhere between the ages of 3 and 4 years old, children learn the syntactic
properties of complex sentence structures that involve these mental state verbs, such as the
sentential complement construction. They begin to understand that these kinds of constructions
can take false propositions. The timing of this understanding of sentential complements roughly
corresponds with the moment that children are starting to understand standard ToM tasks such as
false belief tasks (Astington & Baird, 2005; Newton & De Villiers, 2002).
Around the age of 4 years old, TD children successfully pass a standard first-order false belief
task (Hollebrandse et al., 2014; Liddle & Nettle, 2006). There is only one step in first order
ToM: understanding the thoughts of someone else - what does person X think/know/believe
(Vetter, 2013)? When a child passes a first-order false belief task, it shows arguably
sophisticated knowledge of attributing a belief to another person. Obviously, the understanding
of other people’s mental states is broader than just the understanding of false beliefs. However,
the false belief task is generally considered to be the best way to measure ToM (De Mulder,
2011). Relatively sophisticated understanding of other humans’ mental states is demonstrated
when someone successfully passes a false belief task.
Understanding second-order and higher-order ToM is rather complex and is therefore acquired
later than first-order ToM (Vetter, 2013). Second-order ToM involves the ability to understand
what another person thinks about the thoughts of a third person: what does person X
think/know/believe that person Y thinks/knows/believes? Around the age of 6 or 7 years, TD
children start to understand standard second-order false belief tasks (Hollebrandse et al, 2014).
Research beyond second-order ToM is fairly limited. The understanding of higher-order ToM is
an advanced cognitive skill and is based on second-order ToM skills (Vetter, 2013). Children
aged 12 years and older do not yet show sophisticated knowledge of higher-order ToM (Liddle
& Nettle, 1994), which is therefore an ongoing process in adolescence and adulthood (Liddle &
Nettle, 1994; Vetter, 2013).
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2.3 Theory of Mind in Clinical Groups
Understanding of ToM is not a natural process for all children. For children with specific
language impairment (SLI) and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), the development
of ToM can cause difficulties (Miller, 2004; Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2005).
2.3.1 Theory of Mind in SLI
Individuals with SLI provide an interesting group for the study of ToM, because their language
development does not proceed in accordance with the development in other cognitive domains
(Miller, 2004; Spanoudis et al., 2007). SLI is characterized by severe problems in both
production and perception of language without a clear underlying cause (Zink & Breuls, 2012).
Symptoms of SLI cannot be traced back to a developmental, neurological, sensory (hearing or
vision), or motor disorder. Moreover, research on SLI covers a wide spectrum of language
phenomena at different levels. Different studies show that children with SLI experience
problems in phonology, semantics and syntax, whereas these problems continue to exist in
adolescence (Clair, Pickles, Durkin & Conti-Ramsden, 2011; Norbury & Bishop, 2003;
Spanoudis & Natsopoulos, 2011).
In the preschool and primary school period, children learn to comprehend and produce mental
state verbs and sentential complements (Astington & Baird, 2005; Babar, Lang & Ortlieb, 2013;
De Villiers & Pyers, 2002). Spanoudis et al. (2007) and Spanoudis and Natsopoulos (2011)
studied the mental state verb comprehension of children with SLI, children with a pragmatic
language disorder (SPD) and TD children. The results of both studies showed that the
comprehension of mental state verbs was significantly impaired for the two groups with a
language impairment compared to TD children.
Studies of Bishop (1997) and Farmer (2000) showed that children with SLI were successful in
passing false belief tasks, but at a later age than TD children. According to both studies, this
delay in ToM performance is caused by their language disability. Miller (2004) and Andres-
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Roqueta, Adrian, Clemente and Katsos (2013) reported similar results regarding false belief
performance of children with SLI. Both studies examined the false belief and language abilities
of two groups of children with SLI and two groups of TD children, one group matched on age
and one group matched on language comprehension. When the linguistic complexity of the task
was low, children with SLI performed comparably to the age-matched group on the false belief
task (Miller, 2004). When the linguistic complexity of the tasks was higher, the children with
SLI performed similarly to the younger group matched on language comprehension. Miller
(2004) suggested that children with SLI fail to pass complex false belief tasks because they
failed to understand the sentential complement construction. Andres-Roqueta et al. (2013) found
similar results as Miller (2004), however, they reported that overall language performance was
the strongest predictor of false belief performance.
As long as research into ToM understanding and the relationship between language and ToM in
children with SLI goes back, not much focus has been on adolescents. Therefore, our focus in
this study is to find out whether adolescents with SLI also demonstrate problems with ToM
understanding and whether mental state verbs and sentential complements show a relationship
with this understanding.
2.3.2 Theory of Mind in ASD
ToM deficits are regarded as one of the markers for individuals with ASD. According to the
DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder and is
defined by impairments in the social aspect of communication and interaction together with
stereotypical and repetitive behaviors and/or interests. This results in problems in social
perception as well as in problems with pragmatic understanding of language (Baron-Cohen,
2000; Hale & Tager-Flusberg, 2003). Some individuals with ASD also show problems in more
structural aspects of language (Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2005). Therefore, the variability of the
level in linguistic skills in this group is wide. Some individuals with ASD have severe language
problems, while the language skills of others are within normal range.
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There are different cognitive accounts that theorize about the underlying key aspects of ASD,
such as the weak central coherence account, the executive functions account and the theory of
mind deficit account for autism (Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985; Booth & Happé, 2010;
Happé, Booth, Charlton & Hughes, 2006). The weak central coherence account proposes that
people with ASD appear to show weak central coherence, because they have difficulties with
processing information (Booth & Happe, 2010). They prefer to focus on the details rather than
the global form or meaning of for example a text (Booth & Happé, 2010). The executive function
account for autism proposes that difficulties experienced by people with ASD are a result of a
deficit in executive functions (Happé et al., 2006). These executive functions are complex
cognitive processes that help a person to regulate its cognitive control and attention. According
to Happé et al. (2006) ‘executive functions are required for flexible and adaptive responses in
complex and new situations and involve several cognitive processes, such as inhibition, selfmonitoring or planning’. People with ASD experience difficulties in regulating these cognitive
processes (Happé et al., 2006). The theory of mind deficit account of autism proposes difficulties
with ToM as the most important marker of ASD. 80 % of the children with ASD fail to pass a
ToM task (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985; De Mulder, 2011). However, 20 % of these children with
ASD successfully pass a ToM task without problems. Researchers argue that their language
skills might be the reason why they pass the task (Durrleman & Franck, 2015; Lind & Bowler,
2009; Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2005).
Studies of Ziatas et al. (1998), Tager-Flusberg and Joseph (2005), Lind and Bowler (2009) and
Durrleman and Franck (2015) demonstrated the relationship between language and ToM for
children with ASD. Ziatas et al. (1998) showed that children with ASD perform significantly
worse on the comprehension of mental state verbs and false belief compared to TD children.
However, if a participant with ASD performed well on the mental state verb task, it was more
likely to succeed on the false belief task. Tager-Flusberg and Joseph (2005) and Lind and Bowler
(2009) reported positive correlations between sentential complements and the score on ToM
tasks for the ASD. Both studies conclude that children with ASD are more reliant on their
knowledge of complement structures than TD children in order to successfully pass a false belief
task.
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In a more recent study from Durrleman and Franck (2015) studied the relation between sentential
complements and false belief. The authors tested children with ASD from 6 to 16 years old and
younger TD children from 4 to 9 years old on several linguistic tasks and false belief tasks. They
showed that TD children and children with autism perform similarly on sentential complements
tasks. However, TD children perform significantly better on false belief tasks. For both ASD and
TD, correlations between the verbal false belief task and sentential complements were found.
These findings support the view that sentential complements help children with ASD to pass a
false belief task.
In an early stage of ToM research, difficulties with ToM were pointed for children with ASD
(Baron-Cohen et al., 1985). At a later moment it was discovered that language may help children
with ASD to understand ToM (Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2005; Ziatas et al., 1998). Also for this
group of participants, not much focus has been on adolescents. In this study we will therefore
explore whether difficulties with ToM understanding continue to exist in adolescence and how
language relates to ToM understanding for adolescents with ASD.
2.4 Current Study
2.4.1 Aim of the Research
It is beyond any doubt that the focus of ToM research has been on the preschool and primary
school period for both typical and atypical groups of children (see Astington & Baird, 2005 – for
a collection of papers on this topic). Studies have shown that there is a relationship between
mental state verb comprehension, sentential complement comprehension and ToM understanding
in childhood (Andres-Roqueta et al., 2013; Astington & Baird, 2005; De Villiers & Pyers, 2002;
Miller, 2004; Ziatas et al., 1998). Moreover, clear differences were found between TD children
and children with ASD or SLI on ToM understanding (Miller, 2004; Tager-Flusberg & Joseph,
2005). Both the relationship between specific linguistic components and ToM, and the
differences on ToM understanding between groups have not been extensively studied in
adolescents. The aim of our research is therefore twofold: (1) we want to shed light on the
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relationship between ToM understanding and the comprehension of mental state verbs and
sentential complements in adolescence and (2) we will study the differences between TD
adolescents and adolescents with ASD or SLI.
2.4.2 Research Questions and Hypotheses
Based on previous literature concerning the relation between language and ToM and literature
about the differences between TD children and children with ASD or SLI on ToM
understanding, this study will attempt to give an answer to the following two main research
questions:
1. Is there a relation between specific linguistic mechanisms and ToM in adolescence?
2. Is there a difference between TD adolescents, adolescents with ASD and adolescents
with SLI on ToM understanding?
In order to answer these main research questions, four related sub questions, discussing the ToM
performance of the groups, the comprehension of mental state verbs and sentential complements
and the relation between these components, will be addressed.
I.
How do TD adolescents, adolescents with SLI and adolescents with ASD perform on
first-order and second-order ToM?
TD children successfully pass a first order ToM task at the age of 4 or 5 years and second-order
ToM at the age of 7 or 8 years old (Hollebrandse et al., 2014). Therefore, we predict TD children
to perform at ceiling on both first-order and second-order ToM. We hypothesize that adolescents
with SLI demonstrate problems with understanding second order ToM, because the linguistic
complexity of our false belief task is fairly high (Miller, 2004). We also predict difficulties with
ToM understanding for adolescents with ASD, because ToM deficits are regarded as one the
markers of ASD (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985; Durrleman & Franck, 2015).
19
II. How do TD adolescents, adolescents with SLI and adolescents with ASD perform on
the comprehension of mental state verbs?
We predict that the TD adolescents and adolescents with ASD or SLI will perform differently on
the comprehension of mental state verbs. For both clinical groups, we predict to find difficulties
with the comprehension of mental state verbs (Spanoudis et al., 2007; Ziatas et al., 1998).
However, we expect more problems for the ASD group than the SLI group, because children
with ASD have shown to have severe problems with understanding subtle differences in mental
states and with the semantic properties of mental state verbs (Ziatas et al., 1998).
III.
How do TD adolescents, adolescents with SLI and adolescents with ASD perform on
the comprehension of sentential complement constructions?
We predict to find differences in performance on the comprehension of sentential complements
for the three groups. For both clinical groups, we expect to find difficulties with the
comprehension of sentential complements (Miller, 2004; Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2005).
However, we more severe problems for the adolescents with SLI, because it is extensively
shown that children with SLI show problems with complex structural aspects of language
(Miller, 2004)
IV.
What is the relation between mental state verb comprehension, sentential complement
comprehension and ToM understanding in adolescence?
Comprehension of mental state verbs and comprehension of sentential complements has been
proven to be of substantial influence on ToM understanding for both TD children as children
with ASD or SLI (Astington & Baird, 2005; Miller, 2004; De Villiers & De Villiers, 2002;
Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2005). We hypothesize to find a relationship between mental state
verbs and ToM in adolescence. However, we expect this relationship to be more substantial for
the ASD and SLI group, because both groups can experience a more direct benefit from this
20
relationship (Spanoudis et al., 2007; Ziatas et al., 1998).
Furthermore, we also predict a positive relation between sentential complements and ToM
understanding for all groups (De Villiers & De Villiers, 2000; Miller, 2004; Tager-Flusberg &
Joseph, 2005). We hypothesize the relation between comprehension of sentential complements
and ToM to be stronger for the SLI group, because sophisticated knowledge of sentential
complements can help an adolescent with SLI to understand ToM in a more structured way
(Astington & Baird, 2005; De Villiers & Pyers, 2002; Miller, 2004).
21
3. METHODOLOGY
3.1
Participants
Sixty-six high school students from 13 to 18 years old participated in this study. We selected
twenty-three high school students with SLI, twenty-one high school students with ASD and
twenty-two TD high school students. One male student from the TD group was excluded after
testing, because there was an indication of severe memory problems, resulting in 21 TD students
who were included in the analyses. Participants were, as much as possible, matched on age, sex
and level of education in order to make a clean comparison. Group details are listed in Table 1.
Table 1. Group details participants
TD
SLI
ASD
N
Age
Sex
IQ
22
16;34
9 female
> 80*
SD = 0,45
12 male
15;82
9 female
SD = 1,34
14 male
16;57
2 female
SD = 1,61
19 male
23
21
> 80
> 80
Notes: * no IQ information was available, however school level indicates a normal cognitive development
3.1.1 Typically developing adolescents
Twenty-two TD students were tested for this study. All participants of this group were recruited
from Zernike College, which is a regular high school in the South of the city Groningen, the
Netherlands. All participants were between 15;4 and 17;3 years old, with an average age of 16;3
(SD = 0,45). The group existed of nine girls and twelve boys. All students were in their last year
of their four-year program of VMBO, school level 3 or 4. Precise IQ information was not
available for this group, but the level of education and school performance indicates a normal
cognitive development. Since this group contains TD students, the participants in this group did
not have ASD, SLI, or other disorders, as reported by the teachers of the students. Furthermore,
22
students with further cognitive problems were excluded from the selection. Small visual
problems were allowed, if they were corrected by means of visual aids, such as contacts or
glasses. One male student was excluded after testing, because there was an indication of severe
memory problems, resulting in 21 TD students who were included in the analyses.
3.1.2 Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Twenty-one high school students diagnosed with ASD participated in this study. All participants
with ASD were recruited from De Mast, which is a school for ASD high school students in
Merksplas. Merksplas is located in the North of Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium,
close to the border between Belgium and the Netherlands. We were unable to recruit high school
students with ASD from the Netherlands on a short notice; we therefore chose to test students in
Belgium, since Flemish is the official language of Flanders, and Dutch, which is the official
language in the Netherlands, are both varieties of the Dutch language. The lexicon and grammar
are fairly similar. Moreover, Flemish and Dutch people can understand each other almost
flawlessly. However, there are some small differences between the languages mainly found in
phonology and lexicon (Niederländische Philologie, FU Berlin, 2014). These differences mainly
manifest themselves in the spoken accent and differences in meaning of words. Small differences
are found in the syntax. However, our materials were checked by a native speaker of Flemish.
Furthermore, none of the participants has indicated that he or she was affected by the differences
in language.
All participants of the ASD group fulfilled the diagnostic criteria as established by the DSM-IV
or DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; American Psychiatric Association, 2013)
and were between the 13;3 and 18;9 years old, with an average age of 16;6 years old (SD = 1,61).
This group existed of two girls and nineteen boys. All students in this group had a normal
nonverbal IQ of 80 or higher. Approximately half of the students followed OV1 and
approximately the other half followed OV4. OV1 is comparable to level 1 and 2 of the VMBO
section in the Netherlands and OV4 is comparable to level 3 and 4 of the VMBO section of the
Netherlands. In only two of the cases there was a suspicion of ADHD or ADD. However, these
23
participants have not been diagnosed officially with either of these disorders. No students
diagnosed with dyslexia were found in this group. The participants from this group did not have
further cognitive problems or hearing problems. Small visual problems were allowed, if they
were fixed by means of visual aids.
3.1.3 Adolescents with Specific Language Impairment
Twenty-three high school students with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) participated in this
study. All participants with SLI were recruited from the Dr. J. de Graafschool, which is a cluster
2 school in the South of Groningen. Cluster 2 covers children with a hearing impairment and
children with a communicative impairment, like severe speech- or language difficulties. All
students were between 13;7 and 18;4 years old, with an average age of 15;8 years old (SD =
1,34). The group consisted of nine girls and fourteen boys. All students have a normal nonverbal
IQ of 80 or higher. By school entrance, all students were tested on the presence of specific
language disorders by a clinical linguist or speech therapist. Moreover, all scores and measures
of the primary school, if available, were also taken into account. Six participants of this group
were also diagnosed with dyslexia. Dyslexia was not an exclusion criterion because participants
were not required to read words or texts during the different tasks. Participants with other
comorbid disorders were excluded from this study. The participants from this group did not have
further cognitive problems or hearing problems. Small visual problems were allowed, if they
were fixed by means of visual aids.
3.2
Materials
In order to study the mental state verb comprehension, comprehension of sentential
complementation and the understanding of false belief, three different tasks were created and/or
selected. In all three tasks we controlled for memory load by adding control items and/or
questions. The tasks will be explained in detail below.
24
3.2.1 Mental state verb factive and non-factive task
The mental state verb factive and non-factive task is based on a test developed by Spanoudis,
Natsopoulos and Panayiotou (2007). By using this task, the authors were able to measure the
ability of participants to infer factual and non-factual implications. Factive mental state verbs
entail a true event, and non-factive verbs denote events that are not necessarily true, for example
an obligation or an intention. The task of Spanoudis, Natsopolous and Panayitou (2007)
consisted of ten different Greek mental state verbs, of which five factive and five non-factive
verbs. An example of a factive test item (translated in English) can be found in 3. Participants
had to choose which option (A, B or C) was implied by the first sentence. The correct answer in
3 is option C because the verb forget is a factive verb, which implies a true event.
3) John forgot to feed the dog
a. The dog has eaten some food
b. The dog might have eaten some food
c. The dog has not eaten any food.
Our task was based on that of Spanoudis et al. (2007) but used 24 test items in total. In addition,
six control items were added to the task. The goal of our task was the same as for Spanoudis et
al. (2007). In our task, verbs were also checked for frequency. We included both frequent and
less frequent verbs, to check whether frequency is of influence on the comprehension of mental
state verbs.
We selected nine factive and nine non-factive verbs from the factive and non-factive task of
Spanoudis et al. (2007) and the comprehensive list of emotional state words in participants’
narratives of Babar et al. (2013). Frequencies of these verbs were determined by the CELEX list
(Celex Lexical Webdatabase of Dutch, 2001). We used the measure Inlog frequency to
determine the frequency of a word. Inlog frequency shows the number of appearances of a word
within 100.000 words. All verbs with an Inlog frequency score below 3500 were categorized as
less frequent verbs, and all verbs with an Inlog of 6500 or higher score were categorized as
25
frequent verbs. In doing so, nine frequent verbs and nine less frequent verbs were defined.
Although these frequent and less frequent verbs were not equally divided among the nine factive
and nine non-factive verbs, we nevertheless decided to pilot these eighteen verbs among ten
students from the University of Groningen to check whether they give the same answers to the
proposed verbs. For fourteen of the eighteen items, the pilot students were consistent in their
answers. For the other four verbs there was an inconsistency in non-factive verbs that denoted an
obligation (agree, promise), which were not included.
Feedback was received on the first version of the task. On this basis, we designed a new version
of the task. Four factive verbs (weten ‘know’, begrijpen ‘understand’, beseffen ‘realize’,
betreuren ‘regret’) and four non-factive verbs (denken ‘think’, verwachten – ‘expect’, assume
‘veronderstellen’, presume ‘vermoeden’) were included in the task. For both the factive and nonfactive verbs, two verbs were determined as frequent verbs and two verbs were defined as less
frequent verbs according to the CELEX criteria mentioned above. In 4a, 4b, 4c and 4d, examples
can be found of a factive, frequent item (4a), a factive, less-frequent item (4b), a non-factive,
frequent item (4c) and a non-factive, less-frequent item (4d).
4a) Mila knows that there was a course about animals
a. There was a course about animals
b. There might have been a course about animals
c. There was no course about animals
4b) Isa realizes that she lost the book
a. The book is lost
b. The book is not lost
c. The book might be lost
4c) Niek thinks that it has been raining outside
a. It is raining outside
b. It might be raining outside
26
c. It is not raining outside
4d) Mila assumes that the stores were closed
a. The stores were not closed
b. The stores might have been closed
c. The stores were closed
The complete task consists of 30 items: 24 test items and 6 control items (see Appendix A). All
mental state verbs were repeated three times within different sentences, because repetition gives
a good indication of the comprehension of the verb. The control items were equally divided over
the test items and imposed approximately the same memory load. An example of a control item
can be found in 5.
5) Mila eats because she is hungry
a. Mila is hungry
b. Mila might be hungry
c. Mila is not hungry
The second version of the task was piloted among 13 TD students from the University of
Groningen between the age of 19;5 and 26;8 years old. Different students participated in this
pilot experiment as compared to the first pilot experiment. The pilot participants received the
task and the instructions via e-mail. All 13 participants gave the same answers on the task, which
therefore suggested that TD adults understand the implications entailed by factive and non-fative
verbs.
3.2.2 Memory for complements in daily situations
In order to test the participant’s comprehension of sentential complementation a new test was
designed, based on the task of De Mulder (2011). She designed her test because standardly used
sentential complementation tasks (Astington & Baird, 2005; De Villiers & Pyers, 2002) also
27
require a participant to understand the concept of false belief instead of only deducing the
sentential complement from the story. In the tasks of De Villiers and Pyers (2002) and Astington
and Baird (2005) children were told stories in which the character of the story was telling a lie,
having a false belief or making a mistake followed by a sentence that displayed reality. An
example of a test item of Astington and Baird (2005) can be found in 6.
6) This is a story about Mary and her friend. One day Mary thought: ‘the stores are
closed today’. The stores were actually open.
‘What did Mary think?’
De Villiers and Pyers (2002) and Astington and Baird (2005) claimed for these stories that false
belief understanding was not necessary in order to answer the sentential complementation
question correctly, because the participant only had to repeat the thought of the protagonist (De
Mulder, 2011). However, according to Ruffman and colleagues (2003) and De Mulder (2011)
‘the story of Mary and her friend does not make a lot of sense if there is no concept of false
belief available, because without false belief knowledge the story cannot be completely
understood’. If this story does not make sense to a participant, it is harder to remember and
understand the sentential complement question. For this reason, when a participant gives the
wrong answer to the question ‘What did Mary think?’ it is not clear whether the participant is not
capable of extracting sentential complements from the story or whether the participant fails to
understand the concept of false belief (De Mulder, 2011).
De Mulder (2011) developed a new task to differentiate the comprehension of sentential
complements from the comprehension of false beliefs. Her task involved six different stories and
pictures that always involved two protagonists, Karin and Jan, speaking about three different
objects. The two protagonists were shown on the pictures together with three different objects.
All stories had the same set up: Jan or Karin always said something about one of the three
objects. Then the other character said something about the two remaining objects. This was
followed by the sentential complement question, which was asked by a puppet. An example of a
28
story can be found in 7 (De Mulder, 2011). When a participant correctly responded “a teddy
bear” instead of “a teddy bear, a doll and a book” to the question, (s)he was competent of
understanding the content of the sentential complement.
7) [Participant sees a picture of Jan and Karin in a living room sitting next to a teddy
bear, a doll and a book] ‘It’s Karin’s birthday and Karin is showing Jan the presents she
got. Jan says that Karin got a teddy bear for her birthday. Karin then says that she also
got a doll and a book.’
Puppet: ‘That went a bit fast. They both said something, but what did Jan say Karin got?’
What was really important for the task of De Mulder (2011) is that all utterances in the stories
were true. For this reason, the child did not also have to keep in mind that one of the utterances
was false and therefore keep the concept of false belief in mind. In addition to the six test stories
De Mulder (2011) also added four control stories to check whether the participants could deal
with the imposed memory load and whether they were able to track the different events in the
stories. These control stories had the same set up as the test stories. The control stories did not
include sentential complement structures.
We based our task on the task of De Mulder (2011) but we simplified the stories and made them
more appropriate for adolescents. Our task also involved six different stories that could be used
to test sentential complements comprehension. However, we chose to make several changes in
comparison to the task of De Mulder (2011). The first change was that we chose to remove the
puppet from the stories, since we deal with adolescents instead of young children. Second, we
decided to change the setup of the stories slightly. We excluded one of the three objects. As a
result, the protagonists were talking about two objects. This choice was made because the third
object is redundant in the story and makes it unnecessarily complicated. Thirdly, we deleted the
second sentential complement construction in the story and replaced it by a reality sentence (but
look, she also has something else). This second sentential complement construction is
unnecessary, because we are interested whether a participant is able to remember the sentential
29
complement and not whether a participant is competent to distinguish two sentential
complements structures from each other.
The six test stories always involved two protagonists, Sam and Sophie, and two different objects.
The two characters and the objects were shown on a picture to the participant. In the story, Sam
or Sophie always says something about one of the two objects. This was followed by a
proposition that includes the other object. After the story, the leader of the experiment asked the
sentential complement question. An example of a test item can be found in 8. The complete
Dutch version of the task can be found in Appendix B.
8) [Participant sees a picture of Sam and Sophie playing in a sandbox with a ball and a
bucket] ‘Sam and Sophie are playing in the sandbox. Sophie brought some fun things to
play with. Sam says that Sophie brought a ball. But look, she also brought a bucket!’
‘Sophie brought two things, but what did Sam say Sophie brought?’
Correctly responding ‘a ball’ instead of ‘a ball and a bucket’ or ‘a bucket’ shows accurate
comprehension of the sentential complementation construction. Just like for De Mulder (2011)
no propositions of falsity were presented in the story.
Since the stories require working memory skills, four different control stories were added to deal
with the possible memory load. These stories are also based on the control stories of De Mulder
(2011) and imposed approximately the same memory load as the test stories, but did not contain
sentential complementation constructions. We also changed the control stories slightly in
comparison to De Mulder (2011). We made use of two objects instead of three in order to obtain
the same amount of objects as used in the test items. An example of a control story can be found
in 9 (De Mulder, 2011).
30
9) [Participant sees a picture of Sam and Sophie standing next to a starfish and a shell]
‘Sam and Sophie are at the beach. They’re looking for things they can take home with
them. Sophie found a starfish. Sam found a shell.’
‘They both found something, but what did Sophie find?’
The same 13 students were also asked for the pilot of this task. The pilot participants received
the task via e-mail, which included the PowerPoint presentation with the pictures, the word
document with the stories and questions and the response form. Instructions were given in this email. Participants were able to switch between the word document and PowerPoint, but were
asked not to during an item. All 13 participants gave the same answers on the task.
3.2.3 Bake Sale Stories (Hollebrandse, Hobbs, de Villiers & Roeper, 2007)
The bake sale stories task, based on the ice cream truck story task from Wimmer and Perner
(1985), was developed by Hollebrandse, Hobbs, de Villiers & Roeper (2007). Hollebrandse et
al. (2007) made sure that there were no overlapping beliefs for the protagonists in the stories, in
contrast to the task of Wimmer and Perner (1985). The bake sale stories task was implemented in
the present study, because a false belief task is considered to be the root test of ToM (De Mulder,
2011).
The bake sale stories task consists of eight different stories. Each story was accompanied by four
different pictures. The pictures were presented one by one to the participant in order to serve as
memory aid. All stories were set up the same way. Protagonist one and two share the same belief
in the beginning of the story. Then the belief of the first protagonist changes without the second
protagonist knowing about it. Next, the belief of the second protagonist changes without the first
one knowing about it. At this point, the first protagonist has a first-order belief, which differs
from his or her initial belief that he or she shared with the second protagonist.
31
Each test item contained two probe questions, an ignor question, two first-order questions
(Q1FB1 and Q2FB1) and a second-order question (Q1FB2). The purpose of the probe and ignor
questions was to check if the participants were capable of keeping track of the different events in
the story. The Q1FB1 was asked directly after the second probe question and involved a firstorder false belief. The Q2FB1 was the last question provided to the participants and was the
same question as Q1FB1. The purpose of this question was to check whether participants had
difficulties with the length and complexity of the story. In doing so, Q2FB1 served as a control
question in an effective way of how well participants were able to keep track of the different
beliefs despite the length and complexity of the story (Hollebrandse et al., 2014). The goal of the
most important question of the task, the Q1FB2, was to check the second-order false belief
comprehension of the participants. What is important for this question is that it did not make use
of any second-order embedding constructions of the type ‘What does Maria think that Sam
thinks they are selling at the bake sales?’ in the story. This is avoided by eliciting a second-order
answer by asking a “double” first-order question (The mailman asks: ‘What does Sam think they
are selling at the bake sales?’ – What does Maria answer to the mailman?). In this case,
processing a second-order false belief is still required without the commitment of processing a
second-order embedding structure. An example of a test item can be found in 10. The complete
Dutch version of the task can be found in Appendix C.
10) [Picture 1 showing Maria and Sam playing together, is shown to the participant] Sam
and Maria are playing together. They are looking outside and see that there is a bake sale
at the church. Maria says to Sam: “I’m going to buy some cookies for us”, and she leaves
to the market.
[Picture 2, showing mom and Sam, is shown to the participant] Then mom arrives home
and tells Sam that she just drove along the bake sales. “Do they sell cookies at the bake
sales?” Sam asks. “No” says mom, “they sell apple pie”. “Then Maria will probably buy
apple pie for us”, Sam says
Probe 1. Does Maria know that they are selling apple pie at the bake sales?
32
[Picture 3, showing Maria at the bake sale, is shown to the participant] Maria arrived at
the bake sales. “I would like to buy some cookies”, she says. “There are only waffles
left”, says the lady behind the stand. Waffles are also delicious, so Maria buys waffles.
Probe 2. Does Sam know that Maria buys waffles?
First-order false belief question. What does Sam think they are selling at the bake sales?
[Picture 4, showing Maria and the mailman, is shown to the participant] On her way
home Maria comes across the mailman. She says to the mailman: “I just bought waffles
and I’m going to share those with my brother Sam”. “That is really sweet of you”, the
mailman says. “Does Sam know what you bought?” the mailman asks.
Ignor: What does Maria tell the mailman?
And then the mailman asks: “What does Sam think they sell at the bake sales?”
Second-order false belief question. What does Maria tell the mailman?
Second first-order false belief question. What does Sam think they sell at the bake sales?
3.3 Research procedure
All participants were tested individually in a separate, quiet room. The complete test battery took
approximately 35 minutes and the test session was audio recorded. Prior to the experiment, all
participants were given a general instruction and asked to fill in a permission form. The order of
the tasks was the same for all the participants. Participants were first provided with the mental
state verb task, second with the sentential complements task and finally with the bake sale stories
task. Within the tasks we controlled for the order of items. All three tasks were divided into two
lists, the first list starting with the first item and the second one starting with the last item. Half of
33
the participants received list one for all three tasks and the other half of the participants received
list two for all the tasks. Participants had the opportunity to ask for a break if needed.
The tasks were all presented to the participants in PowerPoint on a laptop with a 13-inch screen.
For the mental state verb factive and non-factive task, items were also read aloud by the
experimental leader in order to prevent that differences in reading proficiency were of influence
on the task. For the memory of complements in daily situations and the bake sales task only the
pictures were presented on the screen and the stories were read aloud by the experimental leader.
Participants were allowed to give the answer verbally or, if possible, to point out the correct item
on the screen. Answers given by the participants were written down on the score forms and if
necessary listened back from the recorded audio file.
34
4. RESULTS
The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) examining the relation between the comprehension of
mental state verbs and the comprehension of sentential complements and ToM and (2) studying
the potential differences between TD adolescents, adolescents with ASD and adolescents with
SLI on ToM understanding. We present the results to the reader in four parts (1) descriptive
statistics, (2) comparisons between groups, (3) comparisons within groups and (4) correlations
between mental state verbs and sentential complements on first-order and second-order false
belief.
4.1 Descriptive statistics
Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics for the different measures of the mental state verb
comprehension task, the sentential complement comprehension task and the verbal false belief
task, for the SLI group (N = 23), the ASD group (N = 21) and the TD group (N = 21).
Participants were excluded from the analyses when a score of lower than 75 % was received on
the control items of a task. Therefore, one participant from the SLI group was excluded from the
analyses including sentential complement comprehension.
35
Table 2. Descriptive statistics
SLI
Task
Mental
state
ASD
TD
Measure
Min
Max
M
SD
%
Min
Max
M
SD
%
Min
Max
M
SD
%
Test items
14
24
19.78
2.98
82
12
24
20.86
3.65
87
20
23
22.29
1.27
93
Factive
6
12
10.26
1.84
86
5
12
10.81
2.25
90
10
12
11.33
0.73
94
Non Factive
4
12
9.43
2.21
79
0
12
9.95
3.15
83
9
12
11.00
0.95
92
Frequent
8
12
11.09
1.24
92
6
12
11.10
1.58
92
9
12
11.67
0.73
Less Frequent
3
12
8.70
2.26
72
4
12
9.71
2.63
81
9
12
10.67
1.07
97
89
Fac-Freq
3
12
5.70
0.77
95
4
12
5.81
0.51
97
9
6
5.86
0.36
98
Fac-Less Freq
1
6
4.61
1.59
77
0
6
5.10
1.79
85
5
6
5.43
0.68
90
NonFac-Freq
2
6
5.35
1.03
89
0
6
5.14
1.71
86
4
6
5.81
0.51
97
NonFac-
1
6
4.17
1.50
70
0
6
4.86
1.53
81
4
6
5.24
0.83
87
Test items
0
6
3.39
2.52
56
0
6
4.14
2.27
69
4
6
4.33
2.48
72
Q1FB1
4
8
7.48
1.04
93
3
8
7.52
1.17
94
0
8
7.10
0.94
89
Q1FB2
1
8
5.04
2.23
63
0
8
3.71
3.07
46
5
8
5.24
0.92
65
Q2FB1
4
8
6.91
1.13
86
6
8
7.43
0.87
91
5
8
7.05
2.05
88
verbs
LessFreq
Sentential
Complements
Bake Sales
Note: Participants were excluded from the analyses when a score of lower than 75 % was received on the control items of a task. For this reason, one participant from the SLI group was excluded from
the analyses including sentential complement comprehension.
36
4.2 Comparisons between groups
4.2.1 Mental state verb comprehension
We first studied the potential differences between the groups on the test items of the mental state
verb task (figure 1). Since the data were not normally distributed, group differences between the
SLI group, the ASD group and the TD group were evaluated using the non-parametric equivalent
of the One-Way ANOVA test, the Kruskal-Wallis H test. The Kruskal-Wallis H test showed a
statistically significant difference between the SLI group, the ASD group and the TD group, χ2
(2) = 8.35, p = 0.02. We added post-hoc analyses using the Mann-Whitney U-test. The TD group
performed significantly better than the SLI group, U = 114.00, p = 0.00. No significant
difference was found between the TD group and the ASD group, U = 198.50, p = 0.57, nor
between the ASD and the SLI group, U = 169.50, p = 0.09.
Figure 1. Proportion of correct answers given by the participants on the mental state verb task. * indicates a
significant difference
Subsequently, the test items are divided in the subcategories factive versus non-factive. We
analyzed differences in mean scores between the groups on factive verbs and non-factive verbs
(Figure 2). The Kruskal-Wallis H-test showed no significant difference between the groups on
The understanding of Theory of Mind and mental language in TD adolescents and adolescents with SLI and ASD
37
the score on the factive verbs, χ2 (2) = 4.63, p = 0.01. However, a significant difference was
found between the three groups on the non-factive verbs, χ2 (2) = 7.84, p = 0.02. Post-hoc
analysis showed that the TD group performed significantly better than the SLI group, U =
130.50, p = 0.01. There was no significant difference between the TD group and the ASD group,
U = 204.50, p = 0.66, nor between the ASD and the SLI group, U = 170.50, p = 0.09.
Figure 2. Proportion of correct answers given by the participants on factive and non-factive mental state verbs
Subsequently, the test items are divided in the subcategories frequent versus less frequent.
Differences in mean scores between the groups on frequent verbs and less frequent verbs are
presented in Figure 3. The Kruskal-Wallis H test showed that there was a statistically significant
difference between the SLI group, the ASD group and the TD group on the less frequent verbs,
χ2 (2) = 9.71, p = 0.01. Post-hoc analysis showed that the TD group performed better than the
SLI group, U = 104.50, p = 0.00. The difference between the SLI group and ASD group was
marginally significant, U = 163.50, p = 0.07. No other differences reached significance.
38
Figure 3. Proportion of correct answers given by the participants on frequent and less frequent mental state verbs
Finally, the test items were divided in the subcategories factive - frequent verbs, factive less frequent verbs, non-factive - frequent verbs and non-factive - less frequent verbs. Mean scores
on all subcategories for the SLI group, the ASD group and the TD group are presented in Figure
4. The results were evaluated with a Kruskal-Wallis H test. A statistically significant difference
was found between the groups on the score on the non-factive - less frequent verbs, χ2 (2) = 6.56,
p = 0.04. Post-hoc analysis showed that the TD group performed better than the SLI group, U =
139.00, p = 0.01. No other significant differences were found between the groups.
Because of the lack of a non-parametric alternative, we ran a repeated-measures ANOVA to
check for interaction effects. For factivity, we found a trend, F(1,64) = 3.49, p = .067, indicating
higher scores for factive verbs by the three groups. A main effect was found for frequency,
F(1,64) = 39.69, p < .00, showing significant higher scores for frequent verbs for the
participants. Moreover, a significant interaction effect for frequency and diagnosis has been
identified, F(2,64) = 2.95, p = 0.03. This indicates that the diagnosis significantly influences the
score on frequent and less frequent verbs. No other interactions reached significance.
39
Figure 4. Proportion of correct answers on factive-frequent, factive- less frequent, non factive-less frequent and non
factive-less frequent mental state verbs
4.2.2 Sentential complement comprehension
The results for the groups for the total score on the test items on the sentential complement
comprehension task are presented in Figure 5. Since the data were not normally distributed,
group differences were evaluated with the Kruskal-Wallis H test. The analysis showed that there
was no statistically significant difference between the groups on the score on the test items, χ2 (2)
= 3.72, p = 0.16.
Proportion of correct answers
Sentential complements task
0,80
0,70
0,60
0,50
0,40
0,30
0,20
0,10
0,00
Test Items SC
TD
SLI
ASD
Group
Figure 5. Proportion of correct answers on the sentential complements task
40
4.2.3 False belief understanding
In Figure 6 the results for the first-order false belief question (Q1FB1), the second-order false
belief question (Q1FB2) and the second first-order belief question (Q2FB1) are presented. There
was no significant difference between groups for the Q1FB1, but a trend was found, χ2 (2) =
5.52, p = 0.06. No difference was found for Q1FB2, χ2 (2) = 3.32, p = 0.19, or for Q2FB1, χ2 (2)
= 3.243, p = 0.198. Post-hoc analysis on Q1FB1 showed that the TD group performed
significantly worse than the ASD group, U = 146.50, p = 0.035. No other significant differences
were found.
Figure 6. Proportion of correct answers given by the participants on Q1FB1, Q1FB2 and Q2FB1
4.3 Comparisons within groups
For the mental state verb task we looked into differences between the scores for frequent verbs
versus less frequent verbs and between factive verbs versus non-factive verbs within each group.
For the false belief task we checked whether there was a difference between the score on the
Q1FB1 and Q1FB2 within each group.
A Wilcoxon signed-rank showed a difference between the frequent and less frequent verbs for
41
the SLI group, Z = -3.75, p < 0.01, the ASD group, Z = -2.55, p = 0.01 and the TD group, Z = 2.77, p = 0.01 All three groups performed better on frequent verbs than on less frequent verbs.
No significant differences were found between the factive and non-factive verbs for all groups.
For the false belief task we checked the differences between the score on Q1FB1 and Q1FB2. A
Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that the participants with SLI performed better on Q1FB1, Z
= -3.46, p < 0.01, than on Q1FB2. This was also the case for the ASD group, Z = -3.53, p < 0.01
and the TD group, Z = -3.05, p < 0.01
4.4 Correlations between tasks
Spearmans rho correlation analyses were used to check for correlations. Cohen (1988, 1992 –
cited by Field, 2009) proposed a guideline for correlations. According to Cohen, r = (-).10 to (-)
.30 is indicated as a small correlation, r = (-) .30 to (-) .50 as an average correlation and r = (-)
.50 to (-) 1.00 as a strong correlation. Only marginally significant or significant correlations will
be mentioned.
Table 3 presents the correlations between the mental state verb comprehension task and the
sentential complement comprehension task on Q1FB1 and Q1FB2. For the SLI group we found a
positive, average correlation between the test items score of the mental state verb task and
Q1FB2, which almost reached the significance level, r = 0.41, p = 0.05. For the ASD group a
positive, strong correlation between mental state verb comprehension and Q1FB1, r = 0.48, p =
0.03, was found. Lastly, we found a negative, moderate correlation between the sentential
complements task and Q1FB2, that almost reached significance, r = 0.41, p = 0.06 for the TD
group.
42
Table 3. Spearman’s correlations between the mental state verb task, the sentential complements
task and the false belief task
SLI
Q1FB
ASD
Q1FB2
Q1FB1
TD
Q1FB2
1
MSV
SC
Test Items
Test items
Q1FB
Q1FB2
1
0.13
0.41^
0.48*
0.34
-0.05
0.14
(0.57)
(0.05)
(0.03)
(0.14)
(0.82)
(0.54)
0.21
-0.02
0.11
0.37
0.05
-0.42^
(0.33)
(0.94)
(0.65)
(0.10)
(0.85)
(0.06)
Notes: * shows a significant correlation at p<0.05, ^ shows a trend, p-value is displayed between brackets.
43
5. DISCUSSION
There has been a continuous interest in the relationship between language and ToM
understanding in children over the last decades. Our study followed up on this idea and
examined the relationship between linguistic mechanisms and ToM understanding in
adolescence and the potential differences between TD adolescents, adolescents with SLI or ASD
on ToM understanding. Our main research questions were as follows:
‘Is there a relation between specific linguistic mechanisms and ToM in adolescence?’
‘Is there a difference between TD adolescents, adolescents with ASD and adolescents with SLI
on ToM understanding?’
In order to answer these main research questions, we addressed four related subquestions
discussing the ToM performance of the groups, the comprehension of mental state verbs and
sentential complements and the relation between mental state verbs or sentential complements
and ToM. All four subquestions will be discussed in this particular order.
5.1 ToM understanding in adolescents
Despite the considerable variance between participants in all groups, the general pattern found
for ToM understanding was fairly similar for all three groups. However, for first order ToM we
found a significant difference between the TD and ASD group. TD adolescents performed
significantly worse compared to adolescents with ASD. Explanations regarding this result will be
given below. No significant differences were found on second-order ToM understanding.
5.1.1 TD adolescents
We expected TD adolescents to perform at ceiling for both first and second-order ToM, because
both ToM levels should be acquired around 4 or 5 years and 7 or 8 years respectively
44
(Hollebrandse et al., 2014). Nevertheless, the TD participants from this group passed first-order
ToM in 89 % of the cases and second-order ToM in only 65 % of the cases. For first-order ToM,
they performed significantly worse compared to the ASD group, which was not in line with
previous literature nor our expectations (Franck, & Durrleman, 2015; Miller, 2004). However, an
89 % score shows sophisticated first-order ToM understanding. The significant difference found
between the TD group and the ASD group is considered a shortcoming of the methodology. The
circumstances for the TD group were less ideal compared to the two clinical groups. The TD
participants received less information about the study and tasks beforehand. Moreover,
motivation to participate in this kind of studies is higher for adolescents from clinical groups,
because clinical groups experience a more direct benefit.
TD adolescents passed second-order ToM in 65 % of the cases, which is significantly different
from the score on first-order ToM. However, it is surprising to find such a difference, since TD
children should be able to pass a first-order task at 4/5 years old and a second-order task at 7/8
years old (Hollebrandse et al., 2014). Our result suggests that even for TD adolescents first-order
ToM is easier to understand, which could be due to the fact that it is acquired earlier in life
(Astington & Baird, 2005; Hollebrandse et al., 2014). The already mentioned non-ideal
circumstances and lack of motivation for the TD group and the high complexity and length of the
bake sales task can possibly explain this significant difference between first-order and secondorder. The bake sale task contains at least four different persons per story and different incidents,
which is rather complex to keep track of. If we had chosen another verbal false belief task, for
example a standard change of location task with pictures and text, participants might have been
able to pass second-order ToM more easily. However, if we had this kind of standard task,
potentially other concessions needed to be made. All in all, the bake sale stories task has been
proven to be a solid false belief task. Lastly, we did not check for the presence of ASD in our
control group of TD adolescents. In future studies, we should check the presence or absence of
ASD in order to create a clean TD participant group.
45
5.1.2 Adolescents with SLI
Previous literature demonstrated two important conclusions about the ToM understanding of
children with SLI: (1) children with SLI understand ToM at a later age than TD children, and (2)
children with SLI especially experience difficulties with ToM when the linguistic complexity of
the task is high (Andres-Roqueta et al., 2012; Farmer, 2000; Miller, 2004). Assuming these
differences are still present in adolescence, we predicted to find lower scores for adolescents
with SLI. First-order ToM was passed in 93 % of the cases and second-order ToM in 63 %,
which is a significant difference between the two. This pattern was similar to the pattern shown
in the TD group. A possible explanation for this similar pattern is that the developmental
difference between SLI and TD that was present in childhood disappeared over the years.
Adolescents with SLI were able to catch up with the TD group over the years. This result is quite
promising, because it shows that at least some difficulties experienced by children with SLI
diminish over time. This found result is not unique for this study. Other studies have also
suggested that appearances of developmental disorders, such as SLI, change when children
become older (Bishop 1997).
5.1.3 Adolescents with ASD
We predicted to find clear differences between adolescents with ASD and the other two groups
on ToM understanding (Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2005; Ziatas et al., 1998). Adolescents with
ASD passed first-order ToM in 94 % of the cases and second-order ToM in 46 % of the cases.
No significant differences between the groups were found. Moreover, as was the case for the
other two groups, the difference between first-order and second-order ToM was statistically
significant. Our results show that the ToM deficit account for autism, proposed by Baron-Cohen
et al. (1985), does not specifically hold for our group of adolescents with ASD. The results of the
ASD group can possibly be explained by the same explanation as for the SLI group: the
developmental difference between children with ASD and other groups of children disappears
over the years. Adolescents with ASD are able to catch up with TD adolescents in a few years.
Just like for the group with SLI, it is not surprising that some cognitive differences diminish over
46
the years, because ASD is a developmental disorder.
But how can the low scores for all three groups on second-order ToM be explained? Providing a
valid explanation for this question is rather difficult, because at the minimum, sophisticated ToM
knowledge would be expected in the TD group. It might be that the linguistic and cognitive
complexity of the bake sales task is too high to pass second-order ToM at the ceiling level. In
future studies, a different false belief task, such as the commonly used change of location task, or
alternatively the strange stories task (Happé, 1994) should be preferred to check whether the task
choice influences the understanding of ToM.
By checking the answers of those who failed the second-order questions, it was found that a firstorder ToM answer was given to the second-order question in most cases. This result
demonstrates that some participants may not be completely capable of separating first-order
ToM from second-order ToM, but also that the adolescents participating in our study truly try to
understand other people’s mental states and do not simply perform at chance.
5.2 Mental state verb comprehension and ToM
We predicted that adolescents with ASD and SLI would perform significantly worse compared
to TD adolescents (Spanoudis et al., 2007; Ziatas et al., 1998). Our results showed that
adolescents with SLI received an overall significantly lower score on the test items compared to
the other two groups. Moreover, they also performed significantly worse on the subcategories of
non-factive and less frequent items. This implies that adolescents with SLI experience
difficulties with at least parts of the semantics of mental state verbs. These adolescents are less
competent to figure out subtle differences in mental state verbs and have less knowledge of the
meaning and intention of mental state verbs. This is contrary to our expectations. We expected
the ASD group to perform worse because they have been found to experience difficulties with
subtle differences in mental states (Ziatas et al., 1998). A possible explanation regarding these
results is provided by Bishop (1997). Bishop suggested that children with SLI can be
differentiated into two groups, those who have difficulties primarily with semantics and
47
pragmatics, and those children whose problems mainly manifest in syntax and phonology. It
might be possible that adolescents in our study experience more difficulties with semantics rather
than with syntax. Another possible explanation might be that other linguistic difficulties of
adolescents with SLI become less visible during adolescence, while difficulties with semantics
continue to exist in adolescence.
Previous literature showed that children with ASD perform worse on mental state verb
comprehension compared to TD children (Ziatas et al., 1998). In our study, participants of the
ASD group and TD group performed similarly on the comprehension of mental state verbs. This
demonstrates that they are able to improve the understanding of subtle differences in mental
states while transitioning from childhood to adolescence. Finally, we did not find a difference
between factive and non-factive verbs within each group. However, a significant difference was
found between frequent and less frequent verbs within each group. This shows that our
participants are more sensitive to frequency effects than effects of factivty.
Evidence for a relationship between mental state verb comprehension and ToM understanding
was mixed. Only a positive relation was found for the SLI group between mental state verb
comprehension and second-order ToM. However, this relation was a marginally significant
relation. Mental state verb comprehension did not predict the scores on the ToM task for the
other two groups. For this reason, no strong indication for the relation between mental state verb
comprehension and ToM in adolescence was found. A possible explanation regarding this result
could be that the influence of mental state verbs on ToM is limited to the preschool and primary
school period, because children learn to comprehend and produce these mental state verbs in an
early stage of life (Ziatas et al., 1998).
5.3 Sentential complement comprehension and ToM
The general pattern for sentential complement comprehension was the same for all three groups.
We predicted to find lower scores for participants with SLI (Astington & Baird, 2005; Miller,
2004), but our study did not provide the necessary evidence to confirm our expectations. This
48
indicates that differences found in childhood disappear over the years.
It was also predicted that sentential complement comprehension would show a strong relation
with ToM understanding (Astington & Baird, 2005; De Villiers & Pyers, 2002). Evidence for
this relationship was also mixed: we did not find any correlations between sentential complement
comprehension and ToM understanding for the SLI group. However, a significant correlation
was found for the ASD group between sentential complements and first-order ToM. This
suggests that if a participant has great knowledge of sentential complements he or she is more
likely to succeed on first-order ToM. Tager-Flusberg and Joseph (2005) found the same result. In
contrast, we found a negative relation between sentential complement comprehension and
second-order ToM for the TD group: a low score on the sentential complements task is most
likely to result in a positive score on second-order ToM, which is contrary to previous literature
(De Villiers & Pyers, 2002). There does not seem to be a straightforward explanation for this
result, but the result might be explained as follows: our ToM task did only make use of single
embeddings, such as Maria thinks they are selling cookies at the bake sale, and not of double
embeddings, for example Maria thinks that Sam thinks they are selling cookies at the bake sale.
It is therefore possible that our task does not rely specifically on sentential complements skills
but more generally on linguistic skills.
5.4 Conclusions
It is beyond a doubt that some kind of relationship exists between language and ToM (see
Astington & Baird, 2005 - for a collection of papers on this topic). Some of these studies have
suggested that the relationship between language and ToM is limited until preschool and primary
school period, while others believe this relation to be across the lifespan (Astington & Baird,
2005; Gopnik & Wellman, 1994). With respect to the first main research question concerning the
relationship between specific linguistic components and ToM understanding, no strong evidence
for the relationship between mental state verb comprehension or sentential complement
comprehension and ToM in adolescence was found. This raises the question whether the relation
between specific linguistic components and ToM is limited till the preschool and primary school
49
period. More research in this direction is necessary in order to give a satisfying answer to this
question.
With respect to our second main research question concerning the differences on ToM
understanding for the groups, no important differences were found. Despite the considerable
variance between participants in all groups, the general pattern for ToM was fairly similar for
TD adolescents, adolescents with ASD and adolescents with SLI. However, for first order ToM
we found a significant difference between the TD and ASD group, but we considered this a
shortcoming of our methodology. No differences between the groups were demonstrated on
second-order ToM.
We also suggested that for both the SLI and ASD group, developmental differences in mental
state verb comprehension and sentential complement comprehension diminish in the period from
childhood to adulthood. This result was also demonstrated in other studies, in which it was
suggested that the manifestation of developmental disorders, such as SLI and ASD, change when
children become older. Seen from a developmental perspective this is quite promising for ASD
and SLI, because it shows that people suffering from either disorder may experience positive
changes in adolescence.
Some strong questions remain regarding the performance of the ASD group. Researchers have
tried to explain the difficulties that people with ASD experience on several accounts. We focused
on the ToM deficit account for autismt, but this account cannot fully explain the problems
experienced by adolescents with ASD. Two other proposed accounts are the central coherence
account and the executive functions account (Happé et al., 2006). It might be possible that the
central coherence account or the executive functions account, or a combination of accounts,
could clarify the difficulties and behavior of adolescents with ASD. Future studies regarding
these directions are necessary in order to find out which problems adolescents with ASD
experience.
Another possible view on this topic might be that along with the arrival of the DSM-5, all sorts
50
of ASD, like classical autism, Asperger and PPD-NOS, are placed under the umbrella term ASD.
DSM-5’s predecessor, the DSM-IV, divided ASD into the several disorders stated above. It was
noted during testing that some of the participants failed both first-order and second-order ToM.
By analyzing this further, it was found that these participants have been diagnosed with classical
autism in the past (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). If the criteria of the DSM-IV would
have been used for this study, we might have found some differences between adolescents with
autism and adolescents with SLI or TD adolescents.
5.5 Limitations
The methods used in this study have certain limitations. The limited amount of items used in the
sentential complements task constrained the research. An amount of six test items might not be
enough in order to test the comprehension of sentential complements. If more items will be
included in future research, perhaps some of the group differences and relations will reach
statistical significance.
Another possible limitation of the study was the non-ideal circumstances for the TD group.
Participants from this group received less information about the study and tasks beforehand.
Moreover, participants in this group had never participated in an experimental study before.
Participants of the other groups were more familiar with participating in experimental studies
and more motivated to participate in the study, because clinical groups experience a more direct
benefit. Furthermore, during testing the environment was noisier for the TD group than for the
other two groups, which could have resulted in attention difficulties. In future research, equal
circumstances for all participants should be guaranteed.
5.6 Future directions
Some ideas regarding future directions in this study field have already been provided above, such
as implementing other false belief or ToM tasks and exploring the central coherence account
and the executive functions account for adolescents with ASD. One other direction for future
51
research could be to study the production of mental state verbs and sentential complements
together with the comprehension of mental state verbs and sentential complements. If
participants were also tested on the production of mental state verbs and sentential complements,
this could give more insight in the fact whether both skills are acquired properly, because
production skills are usually acquired later than comprehension skills.
In the case of ToM understanding, we found no significant differences between groups on our
verbal ToM task. However, it might be interesting to study non-verbal ToM understanding in
order to gain more complete information regarding ToM in adolescence. In the case of our false
belief task, the linguistic and cognitive complexities were fairly high, which could have been a
problem for at least some students. In a non-verbal ToM task, linguistic factors are excluded,
which allows checking whether language in general relates to ToM in adolescence and whether
participants pass a non-verbal false belief task easily.
52
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57
7. APPENDICES
Appendix A. Mental state verb factive and non-factive task
The following instruction was given to the participants (Dutch and English):
“Je ziet zo verschillende zinnen op het scherm. Onder elke eerste zin staan drie mogelijke
antwoorden. Ik wil van jou weten welk van de drie antwoorden jij het beste bij de eerste zin
vindt passen. Ik zal de zin en antwoorden voor je voorlezen.”
“You will see different sentences on the screen. Below every first sentence, three possible
answers are presented. You will have to choose which of the three options is the best fit for the
first sentence. I will read the sentence and the possible answers aloud.”
1. Mila weet dat er een cursus over dieren is geweest
a) Er is een cursus over dieren geweest
b) Er is misschien een cursus over dieren geweest
c) Er is geen cursus over dieren geweest
2. Niek begrijpt dat het buiten heeft geregend
a. Het heeft buiten geregend
b. Het heeft buiten niet geregend
c. Het heeft buiten misschien geregend
3. Isa betreurt dat ze een zeven op haar proefwerk heeft gekregen
a. Isa heeft geen zeven op haar proefwerk gekregen
b. Isa heeft misschien een zeven op haar proefwerk gekregen
c. Isa heeft een zeven op haar proefwerk gekregen
58
4. Isa verwacht dat de scholen gesloten zijn
a. De scholen zijn misschien gesloten
b. De scholen zijn niet gesloten
c. De scholen zijn gesloten
5. Mila schrikt want de deur is dicht gewaaid
a. De deur is dicht
b. De deur is open
c. De deur is misschien dicht
6. Niek vermoedt dat de school gesloten is
a. De school is niet gesloten
b. De school is misschien gesloten
c. De school is gesloten
7. Mila begrijpt dat de hond is weggelopen
a. De hond is niet weggelopen
b. De hond is misschien weggelopen
c. De hond is weggelopen
8. Mila beseft dat ze de loterij heeft gewonnen
a. Mila heeft de loterij gewonnen
b. Mila heeft de loterij niet gewonnen
c. Mila heeft de loterij misschien gewonnen
9. Niek juicht want hij is eerste geworden
a. Niek is eerste geworden
b. Niek is misschien eerste geworden
c. Niek is geen eerste geworden
59
10. Isa begrijpt dat de weg afgesloten is
a. De weg is afgesloten
b. De weg is niet afgesloten
c. De weg is misschien afgesloten
11. Niek veronderstelt dat Mila haar huiswerk heeft gedaan
a. Mila heeft haar huiswerk gedaan
b. Mila heeft haar huiswerk niet gedaan
c. Mila heeft haar huiswerk misschien gedaan
12. Mila verwacht dat ze een horloge heeft gewonnen
a. Mila heeft een horloge gewonnen
b. Mila heeft misschien een horloge gewonnen
c. Mila heeft geen horloge gewonnen
13. Isa beseft dat ze de kat niet heeft gevoerd
a. De kat heeft voer gehad
b. De kat heeft misschien voer gehad
c. De kat heeft geen voer gehad
14. Niek denkt dat hij zijn huiswerk heeft gedaan
a. Niek heeft zijn huiswerk niet gedaan
b. Niek heeft zijn huiswerk misschien gedaan
c. Niek heeft zijn huiswerk gedaan
15. Mila rent omdat ze te laat is
a. Mila is te laat
b. Mila is niet te laat
c. Mila is misschien te laat
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16. Isa weet dat de jongen vals heeft gespeeld
a. De jongen heeft misschien vals gespeeld
b. De jongen heeft vals gespeeld
c. De jongen heeft niet vals gespeeld
17. Isa vermoedt dat ze de hond eten heeft gegeven
a. De hond heeft eten gehad
b. De hond heeft geen eten gehad
c. De hond heeft misschien eten gehad
18. Niek betreurt dat hij het boek is kwijtgeraakt
a. Het boek is niet kwijtgeraakt
b. Het boek is kwijtgeraakt
c. Het boek is misschien kwijtgeraakt
19. Mila denkt dat ze de planten water heeft gegeven
a. De planten hebben water gehad
b. De planten hebben misschien water gehad
c. De planten hebben geen water gehad
20. Isa huilt omdat ze verdrietig is
a. Isa is misschien verdrietig
b. Isa is niet verdrietig
c. Isa is verdrietig
21. Mila veronderstelt dat de winkels gesloten zijn
a. De winkels zijn gesloten
b. De winkels zijn misschien gesloten
c. De winkels zijn niet gesloten
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22. Isa denkt dat de winkels gesloten zijn
a. De winkels zijn gesloten
b. De winkels zijn niet gesloten
c. De winkels zijn misschien gesloten
23. Niek drinkt omdat hij dorst heeft
a. Niek heeft dorst
b. Niek heeft misschien dorst
c. Niek heeft geen dorst
24. Mila vermoedt dat vader cadeautjes voor haar heeft gekocht
a. Vader heeft misschien cadeautjes gekocht
b. Vader heeft geen cadeautjes gekocht
c. Vader heeft cadeautjes gekocht
25. Niek beseft dat hij zijn huiswerk niet heeft gedaan
a. Niek heeft zijn huiswerk gedaan
b. Niek heeft zijn huiswerk misschien gedaan
c. Niek heeft zijn huiswerk niet gedaan
26. Mila betreurt dat ze zoveel eten heeft gehad
a. Mila heeft misschien eten gehad
b. Mila heeft geen eten gehad
c. Mila heeft eten gehad
27. Niek verwacht dat de supermarkten geopend zijn
a. De supermarkten zijn geopend
b. De supermarkten zijn niet geopend
c. De supermarkten zijn misschien geopend
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28. Mila eet omdat ze honger heeft
a. Mila heeft honger
b. Mila heeft geen honger
c. Mila heeft misschien honger
29. Niek weet dat het buiten heeft geregend
a. Het heeft buiten niet geregend
b. Het heeft buiten misschien geregend
c. Het heeft buiten geregend
30. Isa veronderstelt dat ze het boek is kwijtgeraakt
a) Het boek is niet kwijtgeraakt
b) Het boek is misschien kwijtgeraakt
c) Het boek is kwijtgeraakt
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Appendix B. Sentential complements in daily situations
The following instruction was provided to the participants (Dutch and English):
“Dit is Sam en dit is Sophie”
“This is Sam and this is Sophie”
“Ik zal je een aantal korte verhaaltjes over Sam en Sophie vertellen. Aan het eind van elk
verhaaltje stel ik een vraag, dus het is de bedoeling dat je goed oplet.”
“I will tell you some short stories about Sam and Sophie. At the end of every story, a question
will be asked, so you have to pay attention to the stories and pictures.”
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[1] Sam en Sophie zijn aan het tekenen. Sophie kijkt naar wat Sam aan het tekenen is. Sophie
zegt dat Sam een huis heeft getekend. Maar kijk, hij heeft ook een auto getekend!
Sam heeft twee dingen getekend, maar wat zei Sophie dat Sam heeft getekend?
[2] Sam en Sophie zitten bij handvaardigheid. Sophie laat aan Sam zien wat ze heeft gemaakt.
Sam zegt dat Sophie een zwaan heeft gemaakt. Maar kijk, ze heeft ook een schoen gemaakt!
Sophie heeft twee dingen gemaakt, maar wat zei Sam dat Sophie heeft gemaakt?
65
[3] Sophie en Sam zijn aan het wandelen op het strand. Ze zijn op zoek naar dingen die ze mee
kunnen nemen naar huis. Sophie heeft een zeester gevonden. Sam heeft een schelp gevonden.
Ze hebben beiden wat gevonden, maar wat heeft Sophie gevonden?
[4] Sam en Sophie vieren Sophie haar verjaardag. Sophie laat de cadeautjes die ze heeft
gekregen aan Sam zien. Sam zegt dat Sophie een beer heeft gekregen. Maar kijk, ze heeft ook
een boek gekregen!
Sophie heeft twee dingen gekregen, maar wat zei Sam dat Sophie heeft gekregen?
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[5] Sam en Sophie gaan naar de kinderboerderij. Ze aaien allemaal dieren. Sophie heeft een geit
geaaid. Sam heeft een konijn geaaid.
Ze hebben beiden dieren geaaid, maar wat heeft Sophie geaaid?
[6] Sam en Sophie spelen in de zandbak. Sophie heeft allemaal leuke dingen meegenomen. Sam
zegt dat Sophie een bal mee heeft genomen. Maar kijk, ze heeft ook een emmer meegenomen!
Sophie heeft twee dingen meegenomen, maar wat zei Sam dat Sophie heeft meegenomen?
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[7] Sam en Sophie lopen door het bos en zoeken mooie dingen om mee naar huis te nemen. Sam
heeft een dennenappel gevonden. Sophie heeft een paddenstoel gevonden.
Ze hebben allebei iets gevonden, maar wat heeft Sophie gevonden?
[8] Sam en Sophie vieren kerst. Ze hebben allebei leuke cadeautjes gekregen. Sophie zegt dat
Sam een auto heeft gekregen. Maar kijk, hij heeft ook een voetbal gekregen!
Sam heeft twee dingen gekregen, maar wat zei Sophie dat Sam heeft gekregen?
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[9] Sam en Sophie zijn op de kermis. Ze doen allemaal spelletjes waarbij ze iets ze iets kunnen
winnen. Sam heeft een knuffelbeer gewonnen. Sophie heeft een goudvis gewonnen.
Ze hebben beiden wat gewonnen, maar wat heeft Sophie gewonnen?
[10] Sam en Sophie zijn aan het picknicken. Sophie kijkt naar wat Sam allemaal bij zich heeft.
Sophie zegt dat Sam een taart heeft meegenomen. Maar kijk, hij heeft ook nog dropjes
meegenomen!
Sam heeft twee dingen meegenomen, maar wat zei Sophie dat Sam heeft meegenomen?
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Appendix C. Bake Sale Stories
The following instruction was given to the participants (Dutch and English):
“In de volgende test krijg je plaatjes te zien en vertel ik bij elk plaatje een verhaaltje. Je moet
goed luisteren en naar de plaatjes kijken, want tussendoor zal ik telkens vragen aan je stellen.”
“In the following task pictures will be shown to you and stories will be told to you. You have
listen and check the pictures carefully, because questions will be asked in between.”
70
1. Bake Sale
1. Sam en Maria spelen samen. Ze kijken naar buiten en zien dat er bij de
kerk een markt is. Maria zegt tegen Sam: “Ik ga daar koekjes voor ons
kopen”, en ze gaat op weg naar de markt.
2. Dan komt mama thuis, en ze vertelt Sam dat ze net langs de markt is
gekomen. “Verkopen ze daar koekjes?” vraagt Sam.
“Nee”, zegt mama, “ze verkopen appeltaart”.
“Dan gaat Maria vast appeltaart kopen”, zegt Sam.
Probe 1: Weet Maria dat ze op de markt appeltaart verkopen?
3. Maria is op de markt aangekomen. “Ik wil graag koekjes kopen”, zegt
ze. “Er zijn alleen nog wafels over”, zegt de mevrouw achter het
kraampje. Wafels zijn ook lekker, dus koopt Maria de wafels.
Probe 2: Weet Sam dat Maria wafels koopt?
Q1FB1: Wat denkt Sam dat ze op de markt verkopen?
4. Op weg terug naar huis komt Maria de postbode tegen. Ze zegt tegen de
postbode: “Ik heb net wafels gekocht en die ga ik thuis delen met mijn
broertje Sam”. “Dat is lief van jou”, zegt de postbode, “Weet Sam wat je
gekocht hebt?” vraagt de postbode.”
Ignor: Wat zegt Maria tegen de postbode?
En dan vraagt de postbode, “Wat denkt Sam dat er op de markt verkocht
wordt?”.
QFB2: Wat zegt Maria tegen de postbode?
Q2FB1: Wat denkt Sam dat ze op de markt verkopen?
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2. Cadeautje
1. Eva maakt een cadeautje voor haar nichtje Marlies, omdat die gauw
jarig is. “Wat zullen we haar geven?”, vraagt ze aan haar broer Lars.
“Chocolade”, zegt hij, “ze is dol op chocolade!” “Hier is een tas”, zegt
Eva, “doe jij zo meteen de chocola erin?” En ze gaat weg.
2. Lars gaat op zoek naar de chocola, maar alle chocola is op.
“Laten we dan maar lollies geven”, zegt hij tegen zijn hondje, “die vindt
Marlies ook lekker.”
Probe 1: Weet Eva dat ze lollies aan hun nichtje Marlies gaan geven?
3. Als mama thuis komt, roept ze Eva. “Laten we Lars zoeken en dan naar
jullie nichtje Marlies gaan. Hebben jullie iets lekkers voor haar in de tas
gedaan?”
“Ja,” zegt Eva. “Wat lief van jullie!”zegt mama. “Wat zit er dan in de
tas?” “Chocolade,” zegt Eva. “Oh, maar dat is niet gezond,” zegt mama.
“Ik doe in plaats daarvan een appel in de tas.”
Probe 2: Weet Lars dat ze een appel aan nichtje Marlies gaan geven?
Q1FB1: Wat denkt Lars dat ze aan nichtje Marlies gaan geven?
4. Eva geeft de tas met de appel aan haar nichtje Marlies. “Dit is een
cadeautje van mij en Lars. Lars komt ook zo hierheen”, zegt Eva. “Weet
Lars wat er in de tas zit?”, vraagt Marlies.
Ignor: Wat zegt Eva tegen Marlies?
En dan vraagt Marlies. “Wat denkt Lars dat er in de tas zit?”.
QFB2: Wat zegt Eva tegen Marlies?
Q2FB1: Wat denkt Lars dat er in de tas zit?
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3. Fiets verven
1. John en zijn zus Anna zijn buiten aan het spelen. John zegt tegen
Anna: “Ik ga mijn fiets verven”. “In welke kleur?” vraagt Anna.
“Blauw”, zegt John, en hij gaat eerst zijn fiets schoonmaken zodat hij
hem straks kan verven.
2. Anna zoekt papa en vindt hem in de schuur. “Hoi pappa”, zegt Anna.
“John gaat zijn fiets blauw verven”. “Oh,” zegt papa, “dat kan niet, want
alle blauwe verf is op. Volgens mij is er alleen nog rode verf”. “Dan gaat
John zijn fiets vast rood verven,” zegt Anna.
Probe 1: Weet John dat er geen blauwe verf meer is?
3. Als John in de schuur komt, kan hij nergens blauwe verf vinden. Na
lang zoeken vindt hij nog wel een klein blikje groene verf, en dat vindt
hij ook wel mooi. “Dan ga ik mijn fiets maar groen verven,” zegt hij.
Probe 2: Weet Anna dat John zijn fiets groen gaat verven?
Q1FB1: Welke kleur denkt Anna dat John zijn fiets gaat verven ?
4. Als hij zijn fiets geverfd heeft, gaat John naar binnen om uit te rusten.
“Is je fiets mooi geworden?”, vraagt mama. “Ja”, zegt John, “ik heb ‘m
groen geverfd. Ik ga ‘m zo meteen aan Anna laten zien.” “Weet Anna
welke kleur je je fiets hebt geverfd?”, vraagt mama.
ignor:
Wat zegt John tegen zijn moeder?
En dan vraagt mama: “Welke kleur denkt Anna dan dat je je fiets
geverfd hebt?”.
QFB2: Wat zegt John tegen zijn moeder?
Q2FB1:
heeft?
Welke kleur denkt Anna dat John zijn fiets geverfd
73
4. Dagje uit
1. Jasper is jarig, en dus heeft papa Jasper beloofd dat ze iets leuks gaan
doen. “Waar wil je vandaag graag naar toe?” vraagt papa. “De
dierentuin!” zegt Jasper. Papa wil eerst even naar de dierentuin bellen,
zodat hij zeker weet dat ze open zijn en hij loopt weg.
2. Dan komt mama binnen. “Wat gaan jullie doen vandaag?” vraagt ze.
“We gaan naar de dierentuin!” zegt Jasper. “De dierentuin is helemaal
niet open vandaag” zegt mama. “Maar jullie kunnen ook naar het
zwembad gaan”. Jasper vindt het een goed idee. Hij gaat op zoek naar
papa om hem te vertellen dat hij wel naar het zwembad wil.
Probe 1: Weet papa dat Jasper naar het zwembad wil?
3. Papa belt de dierentuin. Hij hoort dat de dierentuin vandaag gesloten
is! Wat nu? “Ik weet het al”, zegt papa. “Er draait een heel leuke film in
de bioscoop vandaag, dus ik bel gauw en reserveer kaartjes voor de
film”.
Probe 2: Weet Jasper dat papa met hem naar de film wil?
Q1FB1: Wat denkt Jasper dat hij vandaag met papa gaat doen?
4. Als papa de kaartjes gereserveerd heeft komt oma binnen. “Wat ga je
vandaag met Jasper doen?” vraagt oma. “We gaan naar de film”, zegt
papa.
“Oh,” zegt oma, “Weet Jasper wat jullie vandaag gaan doen?”.
Ignor: Wat zegt papa tegen oma?
En dan vraagt oma: “Wat denkt Jasper dan dat jullie gaan doen
vandaag?”.
QFB2: Wat zegt papa tegen oma?
Q2FB1:
doen?
Wat denkt Jasper dat hij vandaag met papa gaat
74
5. Fruit
1. José en Eric hebben trek in iets lekkers. “Mogen we iets lekkers in de
groentewinkel halen”, vragen ze Opa die aan het oppassen is.
“Je moet wel opschieten.” zegt Opa, “want de winkel gaat al bijna
dicht.”
“Ze hebben vast nog wel van die lekkere rode appels.” zegt Eric.
Eric gaat snel naar de groenteman voordat de winkel dicht gaat. Hij gaat
heerlijke rode appels halen.
2. Dan komt Mama thuis. “Ik zag Eric net op de fiets wegrijden. Waar
gaat hij naar toe?”
“Naar de groentewinkel. Hij gaat appels kopen.”, zegt José.
“Ik kom net terug van de groentewinkel. En ik heb net de laatste appels
gekocht.”, zegt mama, “bijna alles was op. Ze hebben nu alleen nog
peren.”
“Eric zal dan vast peren meenemen.”, zegt José.
Probe 1: Weet Eric dat er alleen nog maar peren zijn?
3. “Alles is op, vandaag”, zegt de groenteman als Eric binnenkomt.
“Heeft u dan helemaal niets meer?”, vraagt Eric, “José en ik willen
graag iets lekkers.” “Mmmm”, zegt de groenteman, “ik heb achter in het
magazijn nog wel doosjes rozijntjes.”
En Eric koopt dan maar de rozijntjes.
Probe 2:Weet José dat Eric rozijntjes koopt?
Q1FB1:
Wat denkt José dat Eric koopt?
4. Op weg naar huis komt Eric Oma tegen. “Dag Oma”, zegt Eric. “Ik
ben naar de winkel geweest om voor mij en José iets lekkers te kopen.
Maar toen ik bij de winkel kwam hadden ze alleen nog rozijntjes.”
“Oh”, zegt Oma, “weet José wat je hebt gekocht?”
ignor:
Wat zegt Eric tegen oma?
En dan vraagt oma: “Wat denkt José dat je ging kopen?”.
QFB2: Wat zegt Eric tegen oma?
Q2FB1:
Wat denkt José dat Eric koopt?
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6. Eendjes voeren
1. Daan en Emma gaan voor het eerst naar de kinderboerderij. Ze
hebben brood meegenomen om de eendjes te voeren. “Ik ga alvast de
eendjes zoeken,” zegt Emma, en ze loopt weg.
2. Daar komt papa. Hij was bij de meneer van de kinderboerderij
geweest. “Weet je, Daan, deze kinderboerderij heeft geen eendjes,
maar er zijn wel geitjes daarginds achter de schuur.”
“Emma zal het brood dan vast wel aan de geitjes geven.” zegt Daan.
Probe 1: Weet Emma dat er geen eendjes op de kinderboerderij
zijn?
3. Maar Emma heeft de geitjes niet gezien omdat ze achter de schuur
stonden. Emma heeft wel hele leuke konijntjes gevonden.
“Ik geef het brood dan maar aan de konijntjes.”, zegt Emma.
Probe 2: Weet Daan dat Emma het brood aan de konijntjes geeft?
Q1FB1:
voeren is?
Welke dieren denkt Daan dat Emma aan het
4. Daar komt mama. Ze zoekt Emma. “Emma, waar ben je?”
“Ik ben hier. De konijntjes aan het voeren.”, zegt Emma.
“Wat een lieve konijntjes”, zegt mama.
“Weet Daan welke dieren je brood geeft?”, vraagt mama.
ignor:
Wat zegt Emma tegen mama?
En dan vraagt mama: “Welke dieren denkt Daan dat je aan het voeren
bent?”.
QFB2: Wat zegt Emma tegen mama?
Q2FB1:
voeren is?
Welke dieren denkt Daan dat Emma aan het
76
7. Buiten spelen
1. Lotje en Thomas zijn binnen aan het spelen. Buiten schijnt de zon.
“Kom we gaan buiten spelen”, zegt Lotje, “Ik wil touwtjespringen.”
“Ik vind touwtjespringen niet leuk.”, zegt Thomas.
“Dan ga ik dat wel alleen doen.”, zegt Lotje.
En ze gaat naar de schuur om het springtouw te halen.
2. Hondje Tim komt binnen met het springtouw in z’n bek. Thomas ziet
dat het springtouw kapot is, het is in twee helften. Lotje kan niet meer
touwtjespringen. Thomas legt het springtouw in de keuken, zodat mama
het later kan maken.
“Dan is Lotje zeker buiten gaan schommelen”, zegt Thomas.
Probe 1: Weet Lotje dat het springtouw in de keuken is?
3. Lotje kan nergens haar springtouw vinden. “Dan ga ik maar in de
zandbak spelen”, zegt ze.
Probe 2:Weet Thomas dat Lotje in de zandbak speelt?
Q1FB1: Wat denkt Thomas dat Lotje aan het doen is?
4. Lotje is in de zandbak aan het spelen. Dan komt papa thuis.
“Waar is Thomas?”, vraagt papa, “wilde hij niet met je spelen?” “Nee,”
zegt Lotje.
“Weet Thomas wat je aan het doen bent?”, vraagt papa.
ignor:
Wat zegt Lotje tegen papa?
En dan vraagt papa: “Wat denkt Thomas dat jij aan het doen bent?”.
QFB2: Wat zegt Lotje tegen papa?
Q2FB1:
Wat denkt Thomas dat Lotje aan het doen is?
77
8. Naar school
1. Lisa moet naar school. Ze heeft haast, omdat het al erg laat is.
“Ga maar met de bus.” zegt mama tegen Lisa, “anders kom je misschien
te laat op school.”
En Lisa rent naar de bushalte.
2. Dan komt papa binnen.
“Zie ik Lisa net weggaan?”, vraagt hij.
“Ja, ze gaat met de bus naar school.”, zegt mama.
“Maar de bus is al lang geweest!” zegt papa. “Ik breng haar snel met de
fiets, zodat ze niet te laat komt.” Dat vindt mama een goed plan.
En papa fietst snel naar de bushalte.
Probe 1: Weet Lisa dat papa haar met de fiets wil brengen?
3. Lisa wacht bij de bushalte. Daar komt de buurman in de auto voorbij.
“Sta je op de bus te wachten?”, vraagt de buurman, “die is al lang
geweest. Ik breng je wel even met de auto.”
En Lisa stapt in de auto van de buurman.
Probe 2: Weet mama dat Lisa met de auto naar school gaat?
Q1FB1: Hoe denkt mama dat Lisa naar school gaat?
4. Op school ziet de juf Lisa aankomen in de auto van de buurman. “Dat
is leuk dat je met de buurman mee mocht rijden! Weet mama hoe je naar
school gekomen bent?”, vraagt de juf.
ignor:
Wat zegt Lisa tegen de juf?
En dan vraagt de juf: “Hoe denkt mama dan dat je naar school gekomen
bent?”.
QFB2: Wat zegt Lisa tegen de juf?
Q2FB1: Hoe denkt mama dat Lisa naar school gegaan is?
78
‘Without language, thought is a vague,
uncharted nebula’
Ferdinand de Saussure
79

- Theses and placement reports Faculty of Arts

Transcription

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