RESEARCH ARTICLE Normative Data and Psychometric Properties of a Farsi Translation of the Strange Stories Test Zahra Shahrivar, Mehdi Tehrani-Doost , Anahita Khorrami Banaraki, Azar Mohammadzadeh, and Francesca Happe Background and objective: The Strange Stories test is one of the most commonly used tests to evaluate advanced “theory of mind,” i.e. attribution of mental states. Normative data and psychometric properties of a new Farsi transla- tion of this test were evaluated in a large community-based sample of Iranian school-aged children. Methods: Through randomized cluster sampling, 398 children aged 9–11 years studying at 20 elementary schools were recruited from 4 central regions of Tehran, Iran. The mean age of the students was 9.96 years (SD 5 0.92), and 51% were girls (n 5 202). The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was completed by parents. The Strange Stories test was completed by all children and repeated for 20% of them after 2–4 weeks to assess the test-retest reliability. Findings: Students in upper grades had higher scores (P < .01); age predicted 2% of variance on the mental state score. Girls had signifi- cantly higher mentalizing scores than boys (P 5 .003). The split-half internal reliability coefficient was good (0.73). The test-retest reliability was fair to good. Item-scale score correlations were all significant (P < .01). Conclusion: This new translation of the Strange Stories test is a reliable and valid instrument to evaluate higher level theory of mind abilities in community samples of Farsi speaking children. Autism Res 2017, 0: 000–000. V C 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay Summary: “Mentalizing” or “theory of mind,” the ability to recognize others’ mental states, is a key aspect of social understanding. Mentalizing problems are characteristic of some clinical conditions such as autism. The Strange Stories is a test evaluating mentalizing in every day social situations. It was translated into Farsi language and admin- istered to a group of Iranian school-aged children. The instrument was useful in assessing children’s mind reading. Older children and girls were better in mentalizing ability. Keywords: strange stories; theory of mind; reliability; validity; children Introduction The ability to recognize other people’s mental states is known as “theory of mind” (ToM), a term introduced by Premack and Woodruff [1978] in relation to chim- panzees’ ability to attribute beliefs, desires, and inten- tions. ToM, or mentalizing, allows us to predict and explain people’s behavior, and is thus fundamental to socio-emotional development [Wellman & Liu, 2004]. ToM deficits are hypothesized to explain dramatic social communicative impairments in autism spectrum disorder [O’Hare, Bremner, Nash, Happ e, & Pettigrew, 2009; White, Hill, Happe, & Frith, 2009]. Research interest in ToM has led to the development of many different kinds of instruments designed to evaluate mentalizing. Many have taken the ability to attribute a false belief as the litmus test for ToM [for a meta-analysis see Wellman Cross, & Watson, 2001]. The standard false belief tasks assess first- and second-order mental state, attribution, for example, the ability to track where Sally mistakenly thinks her ball is, or where John mistakenly thinks Sally expects to meet him [Baron-Cohen, 2000]. These false belief tests are typically passed by young chil- dren, and different kinds of instruments have therefore been developed to assess ToM differences or difficulties in older children and adults [Blijd-Hoogewys, Van Geert, Serra, & Minderaa, 2008]. Advanced ToM tasks typically go beyond testing attribution of false beliefs, for instance requiring recognition of characters’ intentions, attitudes, desires, and sometimes emotions. Some commonly used advanced ToM tests include the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes test” [Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, & Jolliffe, From the Department of Psychiatry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences and Health Services, Tehran, Iran (Z.S., M.T-D., A.M.); Institute for Cog- nitive Science Studies, Neurocognitive Laboratory, Tehran, Iran (M.T-D., A.K.B.); Research Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Sciences, Neurocogni- tive Department Tehran University of Medical Sciences and Health Services, Tehran, Iran (Z.S., M.T-D.); MRC Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, UK (F.H.) Received January 08, 2017; accepted for publication July 16, 2017 Address for correspondence and reprints: Mehdi Tehrani-Doost, Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences and Health Services, Roozbeh Psychiatry Hospital, South Kargar Avenue, Tehran 1333715914, Iran. E-mail: tehranid@sina.tums.ac.ir Published online 00 Month 2017 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/aur.1844 V C 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. INSAR Autism Research 00: 00–00, 2017 1