title: Autism as mindblindness: an elaboration and partial defence creator: Carruthers, Peter subject: Developmental Psychology subject: Philosophy of Mind description: In this chapter I defend the mind-blindness theory of autism, by showing how it can accommodate data which might otherwise appear problematic for it. Specifically, I show how it can explain the fact that autistic children rarely engage in spontaneous pretend-play, and also how it can explain the executive-function deficits which are characteristic of the syndrome. I do this by emphasising what I take to be an entailment of the mind-blindness theory, that autistic subjects have difficulties of access to their own mental states, as well as to the mental states of other people. publisher: Cambridge University Press contributor: Carruthers, Peter contributor: Smith, Peter K date: 1996 type: Book Chapter type: PeerReviewed format: text/html identifier: http://cogprints.org/1193/1/autism.htm identifier: Carruthers, Peter (1996) Autism as mindblindness: an elaboration and partial defence. [Book Chapter] relation: http://cogprints.org/1193/