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Bara, B.G., Bucciarelli, M., & Colle, L. (2001). Communicative abilities in autism: Evidence for attentional deficits. Brain and Language, 77, 216-240.

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To understand the basic idea of "mindblindness" (also known as "Theory of Mind"), consider Baron-Cohen's (1996) description of a study conducted by Perner, Frith, Leslie, and Leekam (1989):
 

In this test, the child is first shown a familiar SmartiesT (a type of candy) container and is asked "What do you think is in here?" The child naturally replies "Smarties." The child is then shown that the tube actually contains pencils. Next the experimenter closes the tube and asks the child two "belief questions." The first question is "When I first showed you this tube (before we opened it up) what did you think was in here?" The normal child, of course, correctly replies by referring to his or her earlier, now false, belief: "Smarties." The experimenter follows this up with "And when the next child comes in (who hasn't seen inside the tube), what will he think is inside here?" Again, the normal child correctly replies by referring to the other child's false belief: "Smarties." When Perner et al. gave this task to children with autism, they found that the majority of their subjects answered "Pencils" to the two belief questions. That is, they answered by considering their own knowledge of what was in the box rather than by referring to their own previous false belief or to someone else's current false belief. The robustness of this finding suggests that in autism there is a genuine inability to understand other people's different beliefs. (P. 71)

"our findings show that communicative competence in autistic children is intact.  It is certainly true that, under normal  conditions, communicative performance in autistics is blatantly  disrupted; but once attentional and emotional support is offered, performance is restored." p. 234

In their article entitled "Communicative Abilities in Autism: Evidence for Attentional Deficits," Bara, Bucciarelli, and Colle (2000) set out to examine this finding by inviting facilitated communication users to participate in "mindblindness" experiments. The individuals whom they recruited for the study ("twenty mute male children diagnosed with autism [DSM-IV] ... ages ... 7-18 years [mean age: 11 years]") were all able to type with just a hand on the shoulder or leg, with no other physical support (p. 226).

Before conducting the actual investigation with "mindblindness tests," the experimenters had each of the participants with autism and controls (non-disabled persons) take part in "cognitive tests" involving sequential ordering of pictures and memory and attention tasks "where the participant is invited to consider a sequence of pictures in order to complete it with one of a series of cards" (p. 227). In this part of the experiment, the participants with autism did more poorly than the controls. That is they had difficulty with tasks that required skills in sequencing, memory and attention.

Also before getting to the theory of mind/mindblindness tasks, the experimenters had participants take part in "pragmatic tasks." The pragmatic tasks included: "direct" questions,"simple indirect" questions, "complex indirect" questions, "ironies," "deceits,"  and "recovery of failures."
 

tasks	examples
"direct" questions	Aldo meets his neighbor and says: 'Nice to meet you, my name is Aldo.' Why does Aldo say that?
"simple indirect" questions	Sergio goes to the cinema and finds Edo. Sergio says hello to Edo, and says: 'Do you mind if I sit down near you?' Why does Sergio say that?
"complex indirect" questions	Andrea and his mother are in the living-room. His mother is sewing and Andrea is playing. He says: 'Mom, I want some chocolate.' His mother replies: 'You have had too much.' What does his mother mean to say?
"ironies"	Enzo is building a tower out of lego(s). His mother puts a little brick on the top and the tower falls down. Then Enzo says: 'You gave me a real help!' What does Enzo want to say?
"deceits"	Elisa and Marta are playing hide and seek. Fabio is near them and he is reading a comic. Elisa counts and Marta hides in the wardrobe. Then Elisa turns round and asks Fabio in ... (a) whisper: 'Where is Marta?' Fabio replies: 'Behind the curtain.' Why did Fabio say that?
"recovery of failures"	Sonia is using a hammer to drive some nails into the wall of her room and attach some paintings. Alice arrives and says: 'I'm not able to study because it is too noisy.' Then Alice goes back to her room, and Sonia take(s) a drill to make the holes in the wall. Then Alice, who wants to study quietly, goes back to Sonia and says: (the child [participant] is invited to complete the sentence).

The participants with autism (these were the fc users who participated in the experiment) did slightly better than the control group participants. Indeed, the persons with autism did as well or better on the pragmatic tasks at each level, that is from the seemingly less complex questions to the more elaborate and complex ones. All of these questions were presented in written form.

The Theory-of-Mind/mindblindness tests were all presented orally and on computer or in written form on a sheet of paper "and the participant ... (was) invited to write down the answer or to point to a specific location. Participants (i.e., persons with autism who use facilitated communication and nondisabled control group members) took part in "First-Order Theory of Mind Tasks" and "Second-Order Theory of Mind Tasks."

Let me explain by referring to the examples that Bara et al., provide in the appendices to their article. The "First-Order" type tasks include one where one of the experimenters (Livia) and the participant observe the facilitator who is hiding some chocolate in a drawer. Then, after Livia leaves the room, the facilitator hides the chocolate in another location. The facilitator then asks the participant, "Where will Livia look for the chocolate when she comes back?"

The Second-Order Theory of Mind Task is more elaborate, but involves the same principle of trying to assess whether the subject (e.g., the person with autism or the control group member) can put him or herself in another's shoes and imagine how he or she would respond to a question, based on what he or she knows (i.e., and not based on what the subject knows). In this Task, the experimenter presents a toy village with named dolls, Giovanni and Marie.

• The story begins with Giovanni going to a park and where he meets an ice-cream man.
• Giovanni doesn't have money with him. So he needs to go home to get money if he wants any ice-cream.
• The ice-cream man tells him that he will be in the park all afternoon. Giovanni says he'll be back to buy the ice-cream.
• But then, after Giovanni leaves for his home, the ice-cream man says he is going to go to the church to try and sell there. Marie hears him say that he is going to the church.
• On his way to the Church, the ice-cream man passes Giovanni's house; Giovanni sees him and asks where he's going. The ice-cream man tells him.
• Later Marie goes to Giovanni's house where his mother explains that he's gone out to buy ice-cream.

• Where was the ice-cream man going?
• Did Marie know that the ice-cream man had talked to Giovanni?
• Where does Marie think Giovanni has gone to buy ice-cream and why?
• After coming home, where did Giovanni go to buy ice-cream?
• Where was the ice-cream man originally (i.e., in the park) when Giovanni and Marie first saw him?

So, the major question that these researchers then must answer is "How can we explain such good performances of autistic children in theory of mind tasks" in this study when they have done so poorly in other studies, particularly when prior studies involved supposedly higher functioning (i.e., speaking) persons with autism, while this study involved persons who could communicate effectively only through typing (i.e., with facilitation)? The experimenters draw the following conclusions:

• The participants are able to attribute mental states to others. That is, persons with autism are able to imagine the other person's perspective based on what the other person knows.
• Similar to other studies in which persons with autism have benefitted from computer instruction and interactive games (e.g., Heimann, Nelson, Tjus, and Gillberg, 1995), "[t]hese data [this theory of mind study by Bara et al., 2000] suggest that the benefit of such methods probably relies on their capacity to focus children's attention on the task" (p. 233)
•  Facilitated communication allows the participants to "overcome their attentional deficits" (p. 231). "It is certainly true that, under normal conditions, communicative performance in autistics is blatantly disrupted; but once attentional and emotional support is offered, performance is restored. Our results contradict the hypothesis of a lack of communicative competence in autistics" (p. 234).

• This study demonstrates that presumptions of retardation or "mind blindness" may be inaccurate estimations of the intellectual abilities of people with autism and related disabilities
• Instead of having problems of thinking (e.g., of imagining what another person's state of mind might be), the person with autism or related disabilities may have problems with more specific challenges such as attention shifting. Moreover, with support to pay attention, to focus one's attention, to think about particular questions asked, and to respond thoughtfully rather than impulsively, the person with autism or related disabilities may be able to succeed in using his or her awareness of the other person's frame of mind or perspective.  This study suggests that, with supports, the performance of a person with autism may be indistinguishable from that of a non-disabled person.
• This is an important study in a long line of studies about "mind blindness" that is critical of that theory. It was made possible because the researchers involved fc users in it. Like other recent studies which have involved fc users, it is an investigation into aspects of autism that benefits from the existence of facilitation, but is not about facilitation per se.

• Bara, B.G., Bucciarelli, M., & Colle, L. (2001). Communicative abilities in autism: Evidence for attentional deficits. Brain and Language, 77, 216-240.
• Baron-Cohen, S. (1996) Mindblindness. Boston: MIT Press.
• Perner, J., Frith, U., Leslie, A., and Leekam, S. (1989). Exploration of the autistic child's theory of mind: Knowledge, belief, and communication. Child Development, 60, 689-700.