Teoria da Mente e Pragmática da Linguagem: estudo com crianças com Transtorno do Espectro do Autismo
Data
2016-12-07
Autores
Buso, Maria Stephani de Lima 
Orientadores
Panciera, Sara Del Prete
Tipo
Trabalho de conclusão de curso
Título da Revista
ISSN da Revista
Título de Volume
Resumo
A compreensão do mundo social está ligada às habi
lidades sociocognitivas que se
desenvolvem progressivamente e que nos permitem atribuir a outras pessoas estados mentais
como desejos, intenções e crenças. O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar a interface entre o
desenvolvimento sociocognitivo e o da lin guagem, analisando as relações entre teoria da
mente e pragmática da linguagem em crianças autistas. Participaram do estudo 24 crianças
brasileiras, com Transtorno do Espectro do Autismo de grau leve, de 6 a 12 anos de idade,
com alfabetização iniciada ou completa. Para a avaliação das habilidades sociocognitivas foi
utilizada a escala de tarefas de teoria da mente, como elaborada por Wellman e Liu; e, para a
avaliação da compreensão que a criança manifestava em relação à dimensão pragmática da
linguagem ut ilizou se um instrumento que solicitava que a criança fizesse julgamentos a
respeito de enunciados literais e não literais (estes últimos, considerados em duas
subcategorias, a saber, implicaturas conversacionais e expressões idiomáticas ). Os resultados
in dicaram que os dois instrumentos foram adequados à utilização com crianças autistas, na
faixa etária estudada, e que foram sensíveis às variações de compreensão tanto da teoria da
mente como da pragmática da linguagem, não sendo verificado efeito chão ou e feito teto. Os
dados não indicaram relação significativa entre idade e desempenho nas tarefas de teoria da
mente, nem de pragmática, mesmo sendo ampla a diferença de idade entre as crianças.
Entretanto, encontrou se relação significativa em dois casos: 1) as crianças, de forma geral,
manifestaram uma compreensão da linguagem literal significativamente superior à
compreensão que evidenciaram das implicaturas conversacionais e das expressões
idiomáticas (p<0,05), como esperado; mas também, 2) as crianças que tiveram sucesso na
realização das tarefas específicas de falsa crença foram as que tiveram melhor desempenho
particularmente nas tarefas de expressões idiomáticas (p<0,01). Esses resultados, obtidos
junto a crianças brasileiras, reforçam a importância fund amental da linguagem para as
habilidades sociocognitivas e concordam com estudos recentes que apontam e exploram a
relevância da dimensão pragmática da linguagem no desenvolvimento de uma teoria da
relevância da dimensão pragmática da linguagem no desenvolvimento de uma teoria da mente, especialmente para compreensão da falsa crença.mente, especialmente para compreensão da falsa crença.
The comprehension of the social world is connected to the social cognitive abilities that develop progressively and that allow us to assign mental states to other people, like desires, intentions, and beliefs. The goal of this study was to investigate the interface between the social cognitive and language developments, analysing the relations between theory of mind and the pragmatic component of language activity in autistic children. Twenty-four Brazilian children participated in the study, all autistic in a light degree, between 6 and 12 years of age, with literacy initiated or complete. For the evaluation of social cognitive abilities, the theory of mind scale, like elaborated by Wellman and Liu, was used; and, to the evaluation of the comprehension manifested by the child about the pragmatic component of language, it was used tasks that requested the child to make judgments about literal and non-literal statements (the later considered in two subcategories that allowed further analysis: conversational implicatures and idiomatic expressions). The results indicated that both instruments were suitable to the use of autistic children, of the age group studied, and that they were sensitive to the variations of comprehension both from the theory of mind as of the pragmatics, with no evidence of floor effect or ceiling effect. The data doesn't indicate a statistical relationship between age and performance on the theory of mind tasks, nor of pragmatics tasks, even though the age difference between the children was broad. However, an statistical correlation was found in two cases: 1) the children, as a whole, manifested a comprehension of literal language significantly superior to the comprehension that they showed towards conversional implicatures and idiomatic expressions (p>0.05), as expected; but also, 2) the children who had success in the performance of tasks specific to false belief were the ones who had better performance particularly towards the tasks of idiomatic expressions (p>0.01). Those results, obtained about Brazilian children, reinforce the fundamental importance of language for the social cognitive abilities and agree with recent studies that indicate and explore the relevance of the pragmatic dimension of language in the development of a theory of mind, especially to the comprehension of false belief
The comprehension of the social world is connected to the social cognitive abilities that develop progressively and that allow us to assign mental states to other people, like desires, intentions, and beliefs. The goal of this study was to investigate the interface between the social cognitive and language developments, analysing the relations between theory of mind and the pragmatic component of language activity in autistic children. Twenty-four Brazilian children participated in the study, all autistic in a light degree, between 6 and 12 years of age, with literacy initiated or complete. For the evaluation of social cognitive abilities, the theory of mind scale, like elaborated by Wellman and Liu, was used; and, to the evaluation of the comprehension manifested by the child about the pragmatic component of language, it was used tasks that requested the child to make judgments about literal and non-literal statements (the later considered in two subcategories that allowed further analysis: conversational implicatures and idiomatic expressions). The results indicated that both instruments were suitable to the use of autistic children, of the age group studied, and that they were sensitive to the variations of comprehension both from the theory of mind as of the pragmatics, with no evidence of floor effect or ceiling effect. The data doesn't indicate a statistical relationship between age and performance on the theory of mind tasks, nor of pragmatics tasks, even though the age difference between the children was broad. However, an statistical correlation was found in two cases: 1) the children, as a whole, manifested a comprehension of literal language significantly superior to the comprehension that they showed towards conversional implicatures and idiomatic expressions (p>0.05), as expected; but also, 2) the children who had success in the performance of tasks specific to false belief were the ones who had better performance particularly towards the tasks of idiomatic expressions (p>0.01). Those results, obtained about Brazilian children, reinforce the fundamental importance of language for the social cognitive abilities and agree with recent studies that indicate and explore the relevance of the pragmatic dimension of language in the development of a theory of mind, especially to the comprehension of false belief
Descrição
Citação
BUSO, Maria Stephani de Lima. Teoria da Mente e Pragmática da Linguagem: estudo com crianças com Transtorno do Espectro do Autismo. 2016. 63 f. Trabalho de conclusão de curso (Graduação em Psicologia) - Instituto de Saúde e Sociedade, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Santos, 2016.