In 1988, two American psychologists published the Sally and Anne test. A study still used to prove that autistic people are unable to put themselves in the shoes of others and thus unable to hold conversations.
But there are some things weird about this study. In this study, six-year-olds are shown a piece of puppet theater and are asked a question. Autistic children give an abnormal response.
In the puppet theater two female puppets do something and children are asked for a response. But in the 1950s it was investigated at what age children learn prejudices. It turns out that they learn them by age five. Since then, it has been common practice to include both men and women in research in order to rule out prejudice. Strange that this did not happen in this study.
This study assumes that the neurotypical child’s response is normal and the autistic child’s response is abnormal. However, it was immediately clear to me how the autistic child arrived at his answer. But I didn’t understand the neurotypical child’s answer.
This turned out to be a pretty tough nut to crack. It took me more than eight years to figure out how nasty this “study” is.
Psychologists learn a few things during their studies.
They learn, among other things, that in the 1950s research was carried out to find the age at which children learn prejudices. This turns out to happen in neurotypical children at the age of five. These prejudices are not only about people with different skin colors. But also about gender roles of men and women.
For example, five-year-old’s learn the prejudice that men are big slobs, while women always store their belongings neatly.
In addition, psychologists learn a thing or two about autism during their studies. Among other things, autists do not start talking until they are six. That they never learn to have conversations. That they get to know the world by observing it.
Autistic children who observe the world discover, among other things, that both men and women are sometimes sloppy and that both men and women sometimes tidy up. Slobs always assume that things are where cleaners always put them.
Men are sloppy with utensils and clothes. Women are sloppy with tools and anything related to the car. Traditionally, women were engaged in the upbringing of children. They told children about men’s sloppiness, but not about their own.
Based on what psychologists learn during their studies, they can predict exactly which answers children in the Sally and Anne “study” will give.
Neurotypical children will go by their preconceptions and assume that a female doll will put the marble in the right place and that every woman will respect that. So neurotypical kids don’t expect Anne to move the marble and assume Sally couldn’t have known that either. So neurotypical kids will assume that Sally thinks the marble is in the basket.
Autistic children immediately recognize this situation as tidying up. The first doll is a big slob that has placed the marble in a random spot. The second doll cleans up. The next time the slob needs a marble, she looks where the cleaner always puts them. So autistic kids will assume that Sally thinks the marble is in the chest.
This story is not a study at all. It’s a piece of fraud of the worst kind.
The average citizen has not studied psychology and is not aware that they themselves have prejudices and that other neurotypicals have the same prejudices.
This story was published for the explicit purpose of giving the average citizen the impression that autistic people are incapable of empathizing with others and thus are naturally incapable of having conversations.
However, this story also has a second purpose. This makes it possible for psychologists and psychiatrists to give society the finger and say, “Look how smart we are. We can cheat right under your nose and you are too stupid to realize it.”