Effects of Delay, Question Type, and Socioemotional Support on Episodic Memory Retrieval by Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Telma Sousa Almeida, Michael E Lamb, Emma J Weisblatt
PMID 30406912WHAT IT FOUND
Children with autism produced fewer details than peers when asked open-ended questions but remained highly accurate.
Cued invitations, which refocus on details the child already mentioned, elicited the most information. Supportive comments increased details at the two-week interview but not at two months.
Key findings
01Cued invitations elicited significantly more correct narrative details per prompt than any other prompt type for both groups.
02Children with ASD reported significantly fewer correct narrative details in response to invitations, cued invitations, and directive questions than typically developing peers, but accuracy did not differ between groups.
03Supportive interviewer prompts elicited significantly more correct narrative details than non-supportive prompts in the two-week interview, but this effect was not significant in the two-month interview.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample included only cognitively and verbally able children (IQ 90+), so findings may not apply to autistic children with intellectual disabilities. The event recalled was a neutral, standardized clinical assessment (ADOS-2), not a stressful or abusive experience, which limits generalisability to forensic contexts. The study design was observational regarding support; it did not include randomized control conditions for supportive vs. non-supportive interviewing, so causal claims about support are limited. The sample size was relatively small (59 total participants).
Declared interests
The study was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. No other conflicts of interest were reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that supportive comments will consistently increase detail in all interview sessions; the benefit was significant only at the two-week mark and absent at two months. Also, do not interpret the lower volume of details from children with ASD as inaccuracy; their responses were just as accurate as those of typically developing peers.