¿Se puede ayudar a los niños con trastornos del espectro autista a adquirir una «teoría de la mente»?

The steady increase in the numbers of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) over recent years has significant implications for therapeutic services. Although general behavioural interventions have been found beneficial for many children, especially at the pre-school stage, there is also a need for interventions with a specific focus on the social-communication difficulties experienced by older children with ASD. Deficits in «theory of mind», that is the ability to attribute mental states-beliefs, intentions, desires, pretence, knowledge, understanding etc.-to oneself and others are postulated as underlying many of the social difficulties that characterise autism. The present article summarises the impact of deficits in theory of mind across many different areas of functioning, and the types of approach that have been used in an attempt to ameliorate these. The techniques used to help children with ASD acquire a theory of mind have become increasingly sophisticated over recent years and computerized technologies are being increasingly used. However, although a variety of strategies has proved successful in labbased, experimental environments, generalization to and maintenance of gains within naturalistic settings has proved much more of a challenge. In particular, since it is evident that deficits associated with «theory of mind» are apparent by the second year of life, there is a need to develop interventions that can be used with much younger children, in order to try to reduce the impact that such deficits have on so many other domains of functioning throughout their lives.