Baron Cohen, Leslie and Frith

 The aim of BC’s experiment was to demonstrate that the central deficit
underlying autism is the autistic child's inability to employ a theory of mind.
 Three groups of children were used a participants.  
 20 autistic children with a mean chronological age (CA) of 11;11 (11 years, 11
months) and a mean verbal mental age (vMA) of 5;5;
 14 Down's syndrome children with a mean CA of 10;11 and a mean vMA
2;11;
 27 'normal' children with a CA of 4;5 (who were assumed to have vMA's
equivalent to their CA).  
 The 61 children were tested one at a time.  
 The children were seated behind a desk opposite the experimenter.  
 On the desk were two dolls, Sally and Anne.  Sally had a basket in front of
her, and Anne had a box.  
 The dolls were introduced to the children (e.g. ‘this is Sally’)
 After introducing the dolls, the child's ability to name them was tested (the
'Naming Question').  
 Sally then takes a marble and hides it in her basket.  She then leaves the
room and 'goes for a walk'.  Whilst she is away, and therefore unknown to her,
Anne takes the marble out of Sally's basket and puts it in her own box. 
 Sally returns and the child is asked the key question 'Where will Sally look for
her marble?'  (the 'Belief Question').  The correct response is to point to or
name Sally's basket; that is, to indicate that the child knows that Sally believes
the marble to be somewhere where it is not.  The incorrect response is to
point to Anne's box.
 Two control questions are also asked:  'Where is the marble really?' ('Reality
Question'), and 'Where was the marble in the beginning?' ('Memory
Question').  
 Every child was tested twice.  During the second time a new location (the
experimenters pocket) for the marble was introduced:
 For the children to succeed in this task they have to attribute a belief to Sally. 
That is, the children have to be able to appreciate that Sally has beliefs about
the world which can differ from their own beliefs, and which happen in this
case not to be true.      
 The 'naming', 'reality', and 'memory' questions were answered correctly by all
the children.  
 However, whereas at least 85% of the 'normal' and Down's syndrome children
gave the correct response to the belief question, only 20 % (4 from 20) of the
autistic children were able to do so.
 The 16 autistic children who gave the wrong response pointed to where the
marble really was rather than to where Sally must believe it to be.
 The findings support BC's argument that autistic children have under-
developed 'theories of mind'.  According to BC, most of the autistic children
were unable to appreciate that another person has their own beliefs which
may not match up with how things really are. The results lend support to the
notion that autistic children may have under-developed 'theories of mind'.