Our intent is not to teach persons to pass the variety of ToM tasks that have been developed, but rather to use persons' performance on these tasks as an indication of how they interpret social experiences and discourse in the world. - Westby and Robinson (2014)

I selected this quotation from one of the articles as the lead-in to this From the Editor column because it captures so well what is special about this issue. Beyond providing a review of current research on theory of mind (ToM) in children and adults, some with communication disorders, this issue transports researchers and clinicians beyond common ToM tasks into less explored ToM territory. The articles invite readers to think more deeply about what it means to imagine what is in other people's minds. Issue Editor Carol Westby conceived this issue as a way to flesh out aspects of ToM from interdisciplinary and research-to- practice perspectives. To get a flavor of the richness contained in the issue, I recommend reading her Issue Editor Foreword first (Westby, 2014) before delving into the articles.

Here are a few things that add to the depth this issue brings to the topic of ToM and language development and disorders. The issue begins with an article by Dvash and Shamay-Tsoory (2014) that links ToM research to evidence regarding two separate but interacting brain networks that are associated with different forms of empathy-an emotional system and a cognitive system. Others have noted that the complexity of ToM can be understood best by going beyond commonly used false-belief tasks. These authors' theoretical model, along with supporting evidence from neuroimaging research, provides a framework for how to do this and for what follows in the issue.

In the second piece, Stanzione and Schick (2014) review research with three groups whose language skills may interact in unique ways with their ability to learn and express concepts demonstrating ToM. Research conducted with individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing (whose language experiences may vary with the signing abilities of their parents), and also with individuals who have specific language impairments, or whose families are affected by poverty, can shed light on the question of how much performance on ToM tasks might be shaped by one's sociolinguistic experience. This also has implications for how resulting language abilities might be intertwined with concepts of ToM.

De Villiers and de Villiers (2014) pursue the question of the role of language in developing and demonstrating ToM concepts further. They discuss theories of how language and ToM might be related, highlighting, among other things, the importance of the complement sentence structure. An example of this would be the ability to use complement structures to express such concepts as, "She thinks the marble is in the basket."

Kimhi (2014) then provides a fresh look at the large body of research on ToM and autism spectrum disorders, emphasizing the role of domain-general cognitive skills (executive function) and central coherence in the development of ToM, and adding some information about the role of ToM concepts in academics. Kimhi makes the important point that individuals with autism may be able to use verbal skills and explicit reasoning to pass common ToM tasks yet have difficulty with implicit ToM processing demands in complex social contexts. This could explain why general and multimodal social communication interventions appear to be more effective than specific interventions targeting ToM explicitly.

Continuing with implications for intervention, Noel and Westby (2014) describe a single-subject design feasibility study of a narrative-based intervention aimed at enhancing ToM representation among youth offenders with eligibility for services based on emotional disability. This work builds on Bruner's (1986) description of the landscape of consciousness (beyond a landscape of action) in narratives that suggests a rich context for targeting intra- and interpersonal ToM.

The issue concludes with Westby and Robinson's (2014) summary of suggestions for basing intervention possibilities on the evidence from normal development of ToM, along with the slim body of research related to interventions that may have application to this concern. Westby and Robinson's (2014) message of broadening the context of interventions beyond ToM assessment tasks to incorporate narratives and other social contexts (as captured by the opening quotation for this issue) is consistent with Kimhi's (2014) conclusion about enhancing generalization through more comprehensive, multidimensional approaches. These are just some of the thought-provoking themes that make this issue special. Enjoy.

-Nickola W. Nelson, PhD, CCC-SLP

Editor

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