Separate Information Access From Mental-State Inference

To separate information access from mental state inference, document what Imani and each partner saw, heard, were told, experienced, remembered, could access, and later reported. Place beliefs, knowledge, intentions, feelings, predictions, and honesty judgments in a separate inference field. Cite the evidence and alternatives for each. Observable histories can support a practical prediction, while they cannot reveal a private state with certainty.

Build an event-level information history

Record source, message or event, author, recipient, time, channel, accessibility, system delivery, actual access when known, acknowledgment, later correction, and conflicting evidence.

Separate direct report

Imani can report what she noticed, understood, remembered, expected, or intended. Preserve her words and timing while avoiding a claim that any report provides complete private-state access.

Label every inference

Use supported, possible, contradicted, ambiguous, or unavailable for knowledge, belief, intention, feeling, prediction, and honesty hypotheses. Cite the relevant events.

Avoid hindsight reasoning

Later events can update the record without proving earlier access. Preserve what was available at the original decision time.

Use this sequence to separate evidence and inference

Collect artifacts, interview Imani accessibly, align timestamps, classify evidence, list alternatives, correct blame language, and connect the record to an operational repair.

Build Imani's information-history and inference record

Create one versioned information-history and inference record for the volunteer equipment-locker handoff. Include Imani's priority, people, information histories, task and response definitions, language, memory, inhibition, spatial and motor demands, accessible modes, controls, direct reports, mutual interpretations, uncertainty, context, privacy, client experience, invalidity, missingness, withdrawal, evidence limits, qualified owner, correction, and reassessment trigger. Store only decision-relevant information with role-limited access.

Validate Imani's evidence

Reproduce 14 events, 10 complete artifacts, two Imani reports, one partner recollection, one conflict, six initial knew labels, and evidence results of two supported, two contradicted, two uncertain. Verify access, timing, direct report, memory limits, inference, alternatives, and corrections.

Connect Imani's evidence to a decision

The record determines whether the locker process needs delivery confirmation, accessible formatting, clarification, or a narrower assessment. It also prevents blame language from replacing evidence.

Work through Imani's example

Imani has 14 locker-handoff events. Ten include the original message, access log, and partner acknowledgment. Two have only Imani's report, one has only a partner recollection, and one has conflicting timestamps. Staff initially label six misses as Imani knew the change. The evidence supports that wording in two events, contradicts it in two, and leaves two uncertain. Preserve every planned and interpretable event, person-specific information history, task and response version, language and cognitive demand, accessible mode, control result, direct report, partner interpretation, uncertainty, access and health state, withdrawal, invalid event, correction, and unresolved item. This fictional example demonstrates one assessment control. It supplies no diagnosis, global theory-of-mind score, empathy judgment, treatment effect, legal conclusion, coverage decision, or outcome guarantee for Imani.

Address Imani's main interpretation risk

Writing Imani knew or should have known blends message delivery, access, comprehension, memory, and expectation. A system timestamp can show transmission without proving access. A later accurate answer cannot prove what Imani knew earlier. Review information access, task language, memory, inhibition, spatial transformation, response mode, partner behavior, culture, relationship, context, health, fatigue, privacy, masking pressure, preference, direct experience, and design strength separately. A convincing task sequence cannot make an unsafe, inaccessible, unwanted, unauthorized, or appearance-based social goal clinically appropriate.

Keep scope and authority clear for Imani

For Imani's information-history and inference record, the CASP public summary supplies high-level ABA behavioral-health-treatment scope for autistic people, with licensed detail outside this page. The current BACB Ethics Code addresses competence, client involvement, consent and assent when applicable, assessment, medical needs, risk, data, documentation, and evaluation for covered people. The BACB outline is examination content. These sources supply no individualized theory-of-mind diagnosis, private-state access, empathy judgment, legal authority, or requirement that Imani perform a typical social style.

Treat theory-of-mind task claims cautiously for Imani

Gernsbacher and Yergeau critically review claims that autistic people lack theory of mind and summarize substantial language demands in false-belief, Strange Stories, and Reading-the-Mind-in-the-Eyes tasks. A syntax-training study found that changing linguistic skill can change false-belief task performance in its child sample. These sources support auditing language and task demands for Imani. They do not show that language explains every result or that any task reveals a person's full understanding, caring, or empathy.

Keep visual perspective tied to the tested relation for Imani

The visual-perspective review distinguishes spatial and social information and discusses variation across Level 1 and Level 2 tasks. A camera-based reaching study manipulated visual perspective during a motor task and found group differences in its specific child sample. These sources show that spatial transformation, proprioception, response method, and task design can matter. They supply no universal visual-perspective deficit, clinical cutoff, or everyday prognosis for Imani.

Assess mutual understanding rather than one-sided mind reading for Imani

Jones and colleagues used nonautistic observers to rate recorded same- and mixed-neurotype adult interactions. Observers underestimated some autistic participants' partner-reported trust and intelligence and rated mixed interactions least successful overall. The study supports treating social understanding as relational and checking participant reports. Its all-adult video-rating design does not establish how any individual partner will understand Imani.

Preserve assent and communication access for Imani

Breaux and Smith propose individualized assent and withdrawal practices while describing an evolving evidence base. Their paper is practice guidance rather than a separate BACB mandate. ASHA's AAC portal says AAC users should always have access to their tools or devices. Give Imani an accessible way to answer, explain, question, mark ambiguity, disagree, pause, or withdraw. Do not require speech, eye contact, guessing, masking, disclosure, or compliance as the price of participation.

Choose Imani's next bounded action

Imani asks for a device notification plus an acknowledgment field. The program replaces knew with the exact evidence class and time in future records. Record the qualified owner, source evidence, effective date, current task, partner, language, and access version, ordinary supports, communication and health state, implementation check, accessible explanation, disagreement route, and reassessment trigger. Preserve the earlier record when information histories, partners, vocabulary, interfaces, settings, outcomes, health, or priorities change. A repaired arrangement creates a dated phase rather than an error in Imani's prior reasoning.

Close Imani's assessment

Review the information-history and inference record with Imani, the qualified behavior analyst, relevant partners, access owners, and specialists named in the manifest. Confirm that observable information, visual perspective, story comprehension, language, memory, inhibition, social inference, mutual understanding, partner behavior, masking pressure, and client experience remain separate; every denominator is reproducible; AAC, privacy, and basic access remain protected; urgent needs received action; and conclusions stay bounded to sampled tasks. Keep this page draft and noindex until every required review is complete.

How to Separate Information Access From Mental-State Inference