Abstract

This chapter begins with an overview of the controversy surrounding the study of children and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders, and how these inform theories of neurocognitive architecture. It weighs the arguments for and against what we might learn from studying individuals who have fundamental biological impairments. It then discusses the example of research on theory of mind in two different disorders — autism and Williams syndrome — which has highlighted a number of important aspects of how this core cognitive capacity develops in both normal and atypical populations.