Typical people are very quick and efficient in using ToM abilities when engaged in social situations. Research has shown that while some children and adults with Asperger’s syndrome can demonstrate quite advanced ToM skills, they can take longer with the cognitive processing of the relevant cues and responses than one would expect, and require more encouragement and prompts. Their answers to questions that rely on ToM abilities can be less spontaneous and intuitive and more literal, idiosyncratic and irrelevant (Bauminger and Kasari 1999; Kaland et al. 2002).
