Katie Maras, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. Williams, Ph.D., is Professor of Developmental Psychology and Head of the Developmental Research Group at the University of Kent.
Concomitant Concerns
How will members of society (e.g., jurors) perceive these differences in adjustments for a "population of individuals with attribution disorders." Thus, the field can create more specific tools, services, and training to better meet the needs of individuals with ASD.
Concluding Remarks
This is perhaps nowhere more evident than within the criminal justice system. 4 Aspects of the data suggest that individuals with additive spectrum disorders retain similar implicit knowledge of object–location relationships in memory as comparison participants.
Conclusions and Implications
Take‐Home Points
Brief report: The role of task support in the spatial and temporal source memory of adults with autism spectrum disorder. Specific and general autobiographical knowledge in adults with autism spectrum disorders: the role of personal goals.
Overview of Fuzzy Trace Theory
Therefore, it is simpler to examine these processes as they pertain to each of the component skills required for autobiographical memory. At the same time, an event can be relived through the reconstruction of the past using representations of essence.
Autobiographical Memory in ASD
In particular, this is also the domain in which individuals with ASD have consistently shown difficulties. In their sample, adults with ASD did not consistently experience memory benefits for self-performed actions.
Additional Factors That May Influence Autobiographical Memory in ASD
They observed that adults with ASD correctly discriminated between memories for self-defining events and memories for everyday events (Crane et al., 2010), despite deriving less meaning from their narratives and generating fewer specific memories than TD controls. However, the evidence presented here suggests that source monitoring is largely intact in adults with ASD.
Recommendations for Facilitating Effective Retrieval of Autobiographical Memory in ASD
Individuals with ASD may be less prone to strategic changes to self-presentation under neutral conditions (Scheeren et al., 2010). Results presented by Sigman et al. 1998) suggested that individuals with ASD do not have ambiguous emotional responses to videotaped versus real events.
Conclusion
In general, verbal individuals with ASD with average cognitive functioning appear to have good memory (Rutter, 1974). Prior encoding of information is not necessarily sufficient for younger individuals with ASD to remember the material.
Implications
Given the challenges previously described, obtaining autobiographical memories from individuals with ASD will require particular skill on the part of the interviewer. Individuals with ASD lack organizational schemas that reduce large amounts of information into more manageable forms.
The Multifacted Nature of Memory and the Self
The terms self-awareness and self-concept are often used in the literature and are generally believed to relate specifically to self (e.g., Prebble et al., 2013). Through self-awareness, it is possible to focus one's attention on various aspects of the self, including physical sensations, feelings, thoughts, memories and one's self-concept.
The Relation Between Memory and the Self
Within the neurotypical literature, it is well established that individuals exhibit superior memory for information that is considered self-relevant, or that is encoded in relation to the self (Symons & Johnson, 1997). This deeper encoding, in turn, makes this information more likely to be retrieved, compared to information that has not been processed in relation to the self-concept.
The Self in Autism
It would therefore be very surprising if children with ASD were not capable of self-recognition in a mirror. Nevertheless, there is some limited empirical support for the idea that people with ASD have reduced emotional self-awareness.
How Might a Diminished Me‐Self Explain the Memory Profile in Autism?
The crucial difference between the two is that event-based prospective memory is thought to rely less than time-based prospective memory on self-initiated retrieval of one's intention (McDaniel & . Einstein, 2007). In contrast, in time-based prospective memory tasks, retrieval of one's intended action must be self-initiated because there is no cue (ie, event) to remind one of it.
Summary and Conclusions
The validity of using self-reports to assess emotion regulation ability in adults with autism spectrum disorder. Preconceptual aspects of self-awareness in autism spectrum disorders: the case of action monitoring.
Autobiographical Memory in Autism
Deficits in autobiographical memory have been explained as the result of many different factors, including deficits in executive function (Goddard, Dritschel, & Howlin, 2014), autonomic awareness (Bowler et al., 2000), memory binding (Lind, 2010), and scene construction. (Lind et al., 2014). Studies examining autobiographical memory in children with ASD support the idea that both episodic and semantic autobiographical memories are impaired, as children with autism have difficulty recalling events and facts from their personal lives (Bon et al., 2013; Bruck, London , Landa, & Goodman, 2007; Goddard et al., 2014).
Autobiographical Memory and the Self in Autism
All participants were informed that the self-statements provided in the future should be reliable and realistic. Self-efficacy was initially measured as the mean total number of current and future self-statements generated per group (maximum = 20).
Autobiographical Memory Specificity in Autism and Source Memory
Of particular interest to the autobiographical literature, other studies have suggested that source memory may be more impaired in ASD when contextual information includes a social aspect, as impairments in social functioning are a key feature of ASD (O'Shea et al. , 2005). To summarize, the lack of social and/or self-contextual information, as well as the difficulty to connect contextual information with salient information, may contribute to the explanation of autobiographical memory deficits in autism.
Autobiographical Memory Specificity in Autism and Theory of Mind
The role of age and verbal ability in theory of mind performance of subjects with autism. It is important to understand the gradual emergence of autobiographical memory in early life in the context of the normal development of language, memory, and social skills.
Theoretical Model of Autobiographical Memories
On the other hand, procedural memory, sometimes called implicit, refers to performance improvement without conscious recall of learning experience (Baddeley, 1988; Nelson & Fivush, 2004). Thus, autobiographical memory appears to be an intricate interplay of different abilities, which include, but are not limited to, memory systems alone.
Developmental Perspective of Autobiographical Memory and Atypical Development in ASD
Memory Dysfunction and Autism
Autobiographical Memories in ASD
The results of the study indicate the presence of deficits in episodic autobiographical memory in ASD, particularly in relation to the inability to recall specific memories. The results showed that individuals with ASD generated fewer specific memories and took longer to construct specific memories, leading to a decrease in autobiographical memory recall.
Theory of Mind and Narrative Speech
Consistent with previous research, the study attributed shorter story lengths to language and ToM delays (Brown & Klein, 2011) as well as difficulties related to managing competing tasks to the cognitive overload model. Furthermore, the study also reported that ASD children's narratives contained significantly fewer causal statements and included fewer explanations of events, emotions, and thoughts, which is similar to previous findings (Loveland & Tunali, 1993).
Effects of Executive Functions on Adaptive Functioning Impairment in ASD
Social Reciprocity, Executive Functioning, and Language Delays in ASD
Although there is overwhelming evidence of executive function decline in ASD, O'Hern and colleagues (2008) reported that age-related improvements are possible during the window of opportunity in childhood to adolescence due to brain plasticity. Further research is needed to elucidate the specific mechanisms of executive functioning and its involvement in each cognitive function to provide additional information that could be used in early cognitive and behavioral interventions and treatments for ASD.
Executive Functioning in Autism
However, complex executive functioning deficits may persist into adulthood due to information processing dysfunction associated with abnormalities in various brain networks (O'Hearn et al., 2008). Some work by O'Hanlon (2016) suggests that the types of ADHD seen in and outside of ASD may be different.
Executive Functioning and Autobiographical Memory
Autobiographical memory in adults with autism spectrum disorder: The role of depressed mood, rumination, working memory, and theory of mind. A preliminary study of gender differences in autobiographical memory in children with an autism spectrum disorder.
Autobiographical Memory: The Concept
Historically, autobiographical memory has been considered synonymous with episodic memory, but there are several reasons why this assumption no longer holds. The reconstructive nature of autobiographical memory is another argument for distinguishing it from episodic memory.
Theories of Autobiographical Memory Development
We can then conclude that it is personal event memory that is synonymous with episodic memory, but although it undoubtedly provides a foundation for autobiographical memory (Nelson & Fivush, 2004), there are several ways in which autobiographical event memory can be distinguished from episodic memory per se . First, the content of autobiographical memory is essentially self-referential; it contains information about "me". Thus, while my memory of the steps involved in preparing dinner last night is episodic in nature, it is unlikely to become part of my autobiographical memory as it is not relevant to me and to my life history.
Implications for Autism
Thus, a theory of mind deficit is likely to delay and impair autobiographical memory in autism. Moreover, self-awareness and autonoetic consciousness are also involved in autobiographical memory development and deficits in these other metacognitive abilities are also reported in children with autism.
Autobiographical Memory in Children with Autism Access, accuracy, and detail
In line with social interaction theories, emotional problems in autism may contribute to delayed onset of autobiographical memory. Few studies have considered autobiographical memory impairment in the context of general memory abilities.
Summary of Findings and Implications for Eliciting Event Memories in Autism
Development of autobiographical memory in children with autism spectrum disorders: deficits, gains, and predictors of performance. Executive functions are used to process episodic and relational memories in children with autism spectrum disorders.
Autobiographical Memory in Adults with Autism
One of the first published group studies of ABM in adults with autism was conducted by Goddard et al. A study by Goddard et al. (2007) provided three other important insights into the nature of ABM in this group.
Autobiographical Memory in Autism: A Causal Modelling Approach
Eyewitness Testimony in Autism
A number of empirical studies have examined executive function abilities in relation to children's memory and suggestibility. Individual differences in socioemotional factors may also strongly influence the accuracy of children's eyewitness memory reports.
