<P> Generally, children with more advanced theory of mind abilities display more advanced social skills, greater adaptability to new situations, and greater cooperation with others . As a result, these children are typically well - liked . However, "children may use their mind - reading abilities to manipulate, outwit, tease, or trick their peers". Individuals possessing inferior theory of mind skills, such as children with autism spectrum disorder, may be socially rejected by their peers since they are unable communicate effectively . Social rejection has been proven to negatively impact a child's development and can put the child at greater risk of developing depressive symptoms . </P> <P> Peer - mediated interventions (PMI) are a school - based treatment approach for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder in which peers are trained to be role models in order to promote social behavior . Laghi et al studied if analysis of prosocial (nice) and antisocial (nasty) theory of mind behaviors could be used, in addition to teacher recommendations, to select appropriate candidates for PMI programs . Selecting children with advanced theory of mind skills who use them in prosocial ways will theoretically make the program more effective . While the results indicated that analyzing the social uses of theory of mind of possible candidates for a PMI program is invaluable, it may not be a good predictor of a candidate's performance as a role model . </P> <P> Individuals with the diagnosis of schizophrenia can show deficits in theory of mind . Mirjam Sprong and colleagues investigated the impairment by examining 29 different studies, with a total of over 1500 participants . This meta - analysis showed significant and stable deficit of theory of mind in people with schizophrenia . They performed poorly on false - belief tasks, which test the ability to understand that others can hold false beliefs about events in the world, and also on intention - inference tasks, which assess the ability to infer a character's intention from reading a short story . Schizophrenia patients with negative symptoms, such as lack of emotion, motivation, or speech, have the most impairment in theory of mind and are unable to represent the mental states of themselves and of others . Paranoid schizophrenic patients also perform poorly because they have difficulty accurately interpreting others' intentions . The meta - analysis additionally showed that IQ, gender, and age of the participants does not significantly affect the performance of theory of mind tasks . </P> <P> Current research suggests that impairment in theory of mind negatively affects clinical insight, the patient's awareness of their mental illness . Insight requires theory of mind--a patient must be able to adopt a third - person perspective and see the self as others do . A patient with good insight would be able to accurately self - represent, by comparing oneself with others and by viewing oneself from the perspective of others . Insight allows a patient to recognize and react appropriately to his symptoms; however, a patient who lacks insight would not realize that he has a mental illness, because of his inability to accurately self - represent . Therapies that teach patients perspective - taking and self - reflection skills can improve abilities in reading social cues and taking the perspective of another person . </P>

Developmental psychologist have used a procedure called the false belief task to examine childrens
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