정신지체아동과 자폐아동의 마음읽기와 실행기능 특성 비교

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of the theory of mind and the executive function between children with mental retardation and autistic children. In order to accomplish such purpose, the research questions were established as follows. First, how much different are the theory of mind between the children with mental retardation and the autistic children? Second, how much different are the executive functions between the children with mental retardation and the autistic children? In order to resolve the above questions, 40 children with mental retardation and 40 autistic children were selected from special classes of four middle school, of three high school, and from two specialized school in S city. The results of this study are as follows. First, there is no meaningful difference in the first order false belief task like contents false belief task and location false belief task of the children with mental retardation and the autistic children. Second, the executive function of children with mental retardation was a higher level. Specially they scored more in stroop-like day-night to examine their control ability and pattern making to measure mental flexibility. As above, autistic students had an issue with ability of reasoning other's belief to understand and expect other's behavior. The ability of controlling inappropriate distracting stimulus and the mental flexibility of students with mental retardation were a little higher than of autistic children, but there is no meaningful difference in working memory to remember information performing mental motor. Therefore theory of mind, ability of controlling inappropriate distracting stimulus and mental flexibility of students with mental retardation were a little higher than of autistic children, but working memory of students with mental retardation was similar to autistic children's.