The Influence of task Demands, Verbal Ability and Executive Functions on Item and Source Memory in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Sara Semino, Melanie Ring, Dermot M Bowler and 1 others
PMID 28921058WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with autism showed impaired memory for both single objects and their locations, contrary to the expectation that item memory is spared.
Source memory difficulties worsened when more locations were added, and verbal ability predicted memory performance in both groups.
Key findings
01Adults with ASD had significantly lower corrected object recognition scores than typically developing adults.
02Adults with ASD had significantly lower source memory scores than typically developing adults.
03Source memory difficulties in ASD were more pronounced when the number of source locations increased, but only in the condition with 32 objects.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used only one measure of executive function (Colour Trails Test), which may not capture the full range of executive processes involved in memory. Item and source memory were tested in the same procedure, which may have inflated the correlation between them. The participants were adults, so findings may not generalise to children with ASD, who may rely more on executive flexibility. The sample size was modest, though sufficient to detect group differences in memory.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that memory for single objects is preserved in adults with autism. This study found that object recognition was significantly impaired in the ASD group, likely because difficulties in encoding context interfere with recognising the items themselves.