The Theory Of Mind ( Tom ) - 1987 Words

Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to differentiate one’s own mental state from others and therefore, influence the behaviour accordingly. Mental states comprise of the individual’s desires, beliefs and intentions. ToM is considered to be a milestone in psychosocial development as pre-schoolers at the age of 4 or 5 tend to be able to recognise that not everyone perceive the same reality as they do (Wellman, Cross Watson, 2001). This is known as false-belief and is an important skill in comprehending and predicting people’s emotions and actions to construct a meaningful relationship. Many have argued that ToM coincides with language acquisition providing a mechanism to apprehend mental states within one’s cognition (Karmiloff-Smith,†¦show more content†¦That is, whether a deaf child was from a deaf family or normally hearing, and thus the immersion of the natural language leading to a successful ToM maturation. Moreover, a cochlear implant can im prove a hearing impaired child’s communication skills, which benefits social functioning, but still lag considerably behind in ToM compared to normally hearing peers. The outcomes of a delayed ToM do not occur in a particular order nor should they be considered as distinct features. Rather, the consequences are intertwined whereby one particular aspect can affect the other. For a deaf child, their natural language is signing (Mayer Leigh, 2010). Auslan or other variations of signing is instinctive to a deaf individual because it is the language that they can form coherent sentences and explicit semantics to engage in a discourse. Although language is predominately symbols rather than verbal or written compared to a deaf child’s normally hearing peers, it still allows the child to apprehend mental states in their cognition and conceive others around. Therefore, studies have shown that these children can do just as well, or even better, on false belief tests than hear ing children (Marschark Clark, 1998). In other words, despite being diagnosed as deaf or hard of hearing, ‘native signers’ typically show no delayed ToM and the implication is higher control of behaviours, or executive functioning, and