research to note that AAI attachment status is strongly related to measures of people’s
tendency and ability to consider others’ internal states (Biringen et al., 2000; Fonagy,
Steele, Steele, Moran & Higgitt, 1991; Slade, Grienenberger, Bernbach, Levy & Locker,
2005). In the attachment literature this has become known as mentalising, and in the
context of attachment it has been operationalised as reflective function, a manualised
measure of “the capacity to perceive and understand oneself and others’ behaviour in
terms of mental states” (Fonagy, Steele, Steele & Target, 1997). In autism and social
cognition research, the same ability has traditionally been known as “theory of mind”.
Although the tasks used, particularly in the early days of theory of mind research, differ a
great deal from the active, flexible use of reflective function during the AAI or in
everyday life, both concepts are attempting to characterise the same collection of skills
used in social interactions and self-reflection.
It is well established that there is a specific impairment in mentalising in children
and adults with autism compared to typically developing and learning disabled controls
(Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985; see Baron-Cohen, 2000, for a review). As a body of
research built up, it became apparent that most people with autism fail most theory of
mind tasks, but a proportion of them do pass some tasks, at a later age and less
consistently than their peers. Many individuals with HFA have some success even in more
complex and naturalistic theory of mind tasks (see Yirmiya, Erel, Shaked and
Solomonica-Levi, 1998, for a meta-analysis). As with attachment, it appears that theory of
mind is associated with cognitive ability in autism to a degree that is not the case in
typical development (Наррё, 1995). Children with HFA are not simply delayed in their
acquistion of theory of mind, but appear to follow a different developmental trajectory
(Kaland et al., 2002; Peterson, Wellman & Liu, 2005; Serra, Loth, van Geert, Hurkens &
Minderaa, 2002). As discussed above with respect to attachment, it has become accepted