Correlation Between the Theory of Mind and Pretend Play in 5 to 7-Year-Old Children with Autism and Their Typically Developed Peers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with 2 main symptoms of social and communication deficits and stereotyped behaviors. Pretend play and theory of mind (ToM) have an essential role in a child’s cognitive and social development. Objectives: In this study, different variables of pretend play with levels of ToM were examined in 2 groups of typical children and children with autism. Methods: In this case-control observational study, 45 typical children and 18 children with autism aged 5 to 7 years participated. For both groups, the ToM test was performed to measure the levels of ToM, and the child-initiated pretend play assessment (ChIPPA) was performed to analyze the pretend plays in both groups. Both tests were performed directly on children, and the scores were recorded by the examiner. Results: The results showed a significant positive relationship between the total score of ToM and pretend play. In children with autism, there was no difference between the ToM scores regarding age (P > 0.05). There was also a significant relationship between the levels of ToM, percentage of elaborate pretend actions (PEPA), and the number of object substitutions (NOS; P < 0.001). The scores of the ToM and pretend play levels of children with autism and typical children were significantly different (P < 0.001). Conclusions: Based on the findings, the ToM and pretend play levels were lower in ASD children than in typical children. In addition, children who had higher PEPA scores and better NOS had higher ToM scores.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".