Remembering the future; prospective memory across the autistic adult's life span.
Annabeth P Groenman, Carolien Torenvliet, Tulsi A Radhoe and 4 others
PMID 38240223WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic and non-autistic adults performed similarly on prospective memory tasks.
Both groups showed age-related decline in lab tests but no decline in everyday tasks. Older autistic adults completed an ongoing lab task slower than others, suggesting different attention allocation strategies.
Key findings
01No significant differences were found between autistic and non-autistic adults on time-based or event-based prospective memory in either the lab-based Amsterdam Breakfast Task or naturalistic tasks.
02Older adults performed worse than younger adults on the lab-based prospective memory task, but there was no age difference in performance on naturalistic tasks.
03Older autistic adults took significantly longer to complete the ongoing task in the lab-based test compared to younger autistic adults and older non-autistic adults.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study used a cross-sectional design (Wave 3 of an accelerated longitudinal study), so true developmental trajectories cannot be confirmed without longitudinal data. The ongoing task in the lab-based simulation had relatively low cognitive demands, which may have masked group differences that appear in more complex dual-task scenarios. The naturalistic event-based task (token placement) was arguably a hybrid lab/naturalistic task and may not fully represent real-world event-based memory. Internal consistency of the naturalistic tasks was low, and correlations between lab and naturalistic measures were very weak, questioning whether they measure the same construct. Participants with an IQ below 70 or significant neurological/psychiatric comorbidities were excluded, limiting generalizability to the broader autistic population.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. Funding was provided by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that the lack of group differences in prospective memory applies to all daily life situations. The lab task had low cognitive demands, and older autistic adults showed a distinct strategy in managing the ongoing task, suggesting that performance may differ in more complex or high-demand environments.