ArticleArchives of scientific psychology2019
Empirical Failures of the Claim That Autistic People Lack a Theory of Mind.
Article in Archives of scientific psychology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Mentalizing impairments across 11 psychiatric conditions: A transdiagnostic systematic review and network meta-analysis of tasks with static illustrations.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2025Pooled it
- 'A certain magic' - autistic adults' experiences of interacting with other autistic people and its relation to Quality of Life: A systematic review and thematic meta-synthesis.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Pooled it
- Reliability of Theory of Mind Tasks in Schizophrenia, ASD, and Nonclinical Populations: A Systematic Review and Reliability Generalization Meta-analysis.Neuropsychology review · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Examining whether adults with autism spectrum disorder encounter multiple problems in theory of mind: a study based on meta-analysis.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2023Pooled it
- Communication Efficiency in Autism is Unaffected by Neurotype Match: Findings From a Collaborative Referencing Task.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Indirect Pathways to Social Functioning in Autistic Children: The Roles of Verbal Comprehension, Task-Based Theory of Mind, and Caregiver-Perceived Theory of Mind.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Everyday Social Interaction Mediates the Relation Between Autistic Children's Theory of Mind and Parental Stress.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Handling of Reputation-Damaging Information in Adolescents and Young Adults With Autism.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- The Efficacy of Mentalization-Based Interventions Among Autistic Individuals and Their Families: A Systematic Review.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2026Review
- Ableism in Applied Behavior Analysis: A Beginner's Guide to Understanding and Dismantling Ableism in Practice with Autistic People.Behavior analysis in practice · 2026Review
- Modeling how autistic and non-autistic groups learn about their own and each other's preferences.Nature. Mental health · 2026Article
- Growing-up autistic: Sharing autistic children's experiences and insights.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
- Understanding autistic identity contingencies: The chain mediation effect of autism acceptance and loneliness in ableist microaggressions and social camouflage.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
- Theory of Mind and Social Informant Discrepancy in Autism.Child psychiatry and human development · 2026Article
- Human brain network for reading the mind from the eyes: beyond activated and deactivated regions.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Article
- Autistic traits and proneness to shame and guilt: The mediating role of functional connectivity of cortical midline structures.Personality neuroscience · 2026Article
- Intercultural Cognitive Pragmatics as a tool for understanding autism.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- In the future workplace: how the Dark Triad influences unethical behavior through the Fraud Pentagon among accounting students.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Challenging the Assumption That Autistic People Lack a Theory of Mind.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2025Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind-that they fail to understand that other people have a mind or that they themselves have a mind-pervades psychology. This article (a) reviews empirical evidence that fails to support the claim that autistic people are uniquely impaired, much less that all autistic people are universally impaired, on theory-of-mind tasks; (b) highlights original findings that have failed to replicate; (c) documents multiple instances in which the various theory-of-mind tasks fail to relate to each other and fail to account for autistic traits, social interaction, and empathy; (c) summarizes a large body of data, collected by researchers working outside the theory-of-mind rubric, that fails to support assertions made by researchers working inside the theory-of-mind rubric; and (d) concludes that the claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind is empirically questionable and societally harmful.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.