Is theory of mind more fragile than we thought?

[Jessiebanana]

I would like to use autism and the role of imitation to propose a possible answer to Tessa’s question. In class when were discussing the parsing of action and lower level systems in the development of theory of mind, one of Tessa’s arguments was that if there we no primitive higher level functions or mentalistic thinking, then if a child were deprived of experience would they not come to theory of mind. If I’m correct than her doubts were of the ability of one system to completely switch to another without overlap and whether one system built a large part out experience can be responsible for something that seems so innate.
In the chapter we read today by Meltzoff and Gopnik they focus on the specific disability of children with autism not to imitate behaviors or imitate behaviors fully or accurately. If you follow their argument the lack of ability to imitate is detrimental to early development and ultimately leads to not developing a theory of mind. According to them “normal” children use imitation to establish a “like me” relationship with their caregiver, understand the internal and emotional bodily impressions, through mutual imitation establish a conversational dialogue that allows for learning of advanced concepts and even to develop the feeling of sympathy towards others. Meltzoff and Gopnik believe that despite children with autism’s ability to perform well on object permanence tests, the deficiency of this core ability to imitate stunts their “like me” development and ultimately their development of theory of mind.
From the Woodward readings we did about action parsing I believe that action parsing and imitation are relatable and comparable. They’re both low level systems that allow for infants to understand intent in action and take valuable information from their environment. Prior to this reading I don’t think I would ever make a claim or come to a conclusion this strong, but I believe if infants were deprived of their ability to both exercise imitation and mutual imitation and action parsing, then they would be developmentally stunted until they could. I’m not quite sure where I fall in modularity nativism versus starting-state nativism, but I do believe that this lack of ability to use lower level systems is what keeps children with autism from developing theory of mind.