Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 J Autism Dev Disord (2017) 47:1369–1379 DOI 10.1007/s10803-017-3069-5 ORIGINAL PAPER The Role of Theory of Mind on Social Information Processing in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Mediation Analysis Monica Mazza 1  · Melania Mariano 1  · Sara Peretti 1  · Francesco Masedu 1  · Maria Chiara Pino 1  · Marco Valenti 1,2   Published online: 18 February 2017 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017 Introduction Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are char- acterized by a range of defcits in two domains: social com- munication and social interaction, and repetitive patterns of behavior (American Psychiatric Association 2013; Lai et al. 2014). In addition, children with ASD show defcit in social cognition abilities (Mazza et al. 2014). Social cognition includes the cognitive mechanisms based on the capacity to process the social world and emerges in early childhood through the development of “theory of mind” (ToM; Astington and Edward 2010). After birth, newborns begin to develop several social com- petences, such as the capacity for the detection of social agents, mutual afliation, and preference for social pat- terns compared to non-social patterns. At around 3 months, there is evidence that newborns develop the social reciproc- ity related to both contingency recognition between self (i.e. one’s own body) and others (such as his/her mother) and increasing interaction. By the age of 3 to 6 months, early capacities of emotion processing and sensitivity to social signals, chiefy through gaze processing, emerge as highlighted by Happé and Frith (2014). Subsequently, at around 6–18 months, social behavior begins to emerge with the development of strong reciprocity and sharing of mental states with several partners: joint attention, social referencing, attachment, and implicit mental state attribu- tion (Happé and Frith 2014). By the age of 2 years, chil- dren clearly show awareness of the diference between thoughts of the mind and things in the world. Pretend play is an example of this ability; that is, toddlers are able to distinguish between objects and their thoughts for objects. At this age, children also understand that people will feel happy if they get what they want, whereas they will feel sad if they do not (Astington and Edward 2010). A crucial Abstract Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show signifcant impairments in social skills and theory of mind (ToM). The aim of this study was to evalu- ate ToM and social information processing abilities in 52 children with ASD compared to 55 typically developing (TD) children. A mediation analysis evaluated whether social information processing abilities can be mediated by ToM competences. In our results, children with autism showed a defcit in social skills and ToM components. The innovative results of our study applying mediation analysis demonstrate that ToM plays a key role in the development of social abilities, and the lack of ToM competences in chil- dren with autism impairs their competent social behavior. Keywords Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) · Mediation analysis · Theory of mind (ToM) · Social cognition · Social information processing * Monica Mazza monica.mazza@cc.univaq.it Melania Mariano melania.mariano@graduate.univaq.it Sara Peretti sara.peretti@libero.it Francesco Masedu Francesco.masedu@cc.univaq.it Maria Chiara Pino mariachiara.pino@graduate.univaq.it Marco Valenti marco.valenti@cc.univaq.it 1 Department of Applied Clinical Sciences and Biotechnology, University of L’aquila, L’aquila, Italy 2 Reference Regional Centre for Autism, Abruzzo Region Health System, L’aquila, Italy