Introduction

Autism has proved remarkably difficult to describe and explain, rather in the way that schizophrenia has resisted clear description and explanation. This is easily overlooked. My first aim is therefore to set a context within which people who are not specialists in autism may place mind-reading explanations of autism.

A second aim of the chapter is to suggest some logical constraints on psychological explanations of autism in general. Some of these constraints are well recognised and have been discussed with relevance to autism by other writers (Happé, 1994a; Ozonoff et al., 1991a). Other constraints are more specific and have not, I think, been paid much attention. I argue that paying attention to these constraints should help to narrow the field of tenable psychological explanations of autism.

The third aim of the chapter is to assess mind-reading theories of autism against these constraints. I will use the term ‘mind-reading’ to cover what is thought by some to be achieved by simulation (e.g. Currie, this volume; Harris, 1993) and by others as utilising a theory of mind based on a ‘mind-reading module’ (e.g. Baron-Cohen and Swettenham, this volume; Carruthers, ch. 16 this volume; Leslie and Roth, 1993). I will not discuss the relative merits of these two types of mind-reading theory in the case of autism.