The Sally-Anne study
The Sally-Anne study tests whether a child understands that another person can hold a false belief. Children who pass this test show they have developed a theory of mind.
Real World
The Sally-Anne task is now used in diagnostic assessments by NHS child psychiatry teams: a clinician uses puppets to run the procedure with a child referred for autism, using the false-belief question as one data point in a broader ADOS assessment.
Exam Focus
State the exact finding: 80% of typically developing children passed vs. only 20% of autistic children — precise statistics are required for full AO1 credit.
Evaluation Scaffold
A four-step framework for high-quality evaluation. Use this for 'assess', 'evaluate', and 'to what extent' questions.
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