Event- and Time-Based Prospective Memory and Time Perception in Autistic Adults With and Without Intellectual Disabilities.

The groups were not equal on verbal ability: the control group's vocabulary scores were higher (age-scaled 8.0 versus 5.3), and the main memory finding depended on whether this was controlled for. The authors say future studies must match groups on verbal ability. Only 32 people per group, and the authors describe the data as having large variance. Each time interval was measured only once, which the authors say may have reduced reliability; the naturalistic time question was also asked only once at each of its three points. The event-based and time-based tasks ran at the same time as the driving task, so spotting a blue roof may have reminded participants to check the fuel gauge; the authors say the two measures may not be independent. The two groups were not tested in the same place: 19 of the 32 autistic participants and 4 of the 32 controls were tested at home rather than in the laboratory. Co-occurring conditions were not checked with further questionnaires. The authors note ADHD in particular may affect this kind of memory, and a quarter of the autistic group did not say whether they had any. Both groups scored low on the memory game (1.97 of 10 points and 2.87 of 10), and the paper does not discuss whether the task was near the floor for this sample. Participants were recruited from residential groups and sheltered workshops for people with mental disabilities, so they may not represent autistic adults elsewhere. People without speech were excluded, and the authors note there are no tasks designed specifically for people with intellectual disability.

The work was funded by Stiftung Irene, a foundation. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude from this that autistic adults have a memory problem. The lower scores on the game were no longer statistically significant once the two groups' different vocabulary levels were taken into account, and neither group was better at the time-based than the event-based tasks. The only difference that survived was in estimating how many minutes had passed, and the structured timing tasks showed no group difference at all.