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Reminiscing and Autobiographical Memory in ASD: Mother–Child Conversations About Emotional Events and How Preschool-Aged Children Recall the Past

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Abstract

Autobiographical memory (AM) is a socially-relevant cognitive skill. Little is known regarding AM during early childhood in ASD. Parent–child reminiscing conversations predict AM in non-ASD populations but have rarely been examined in autism. To address this gap, 17 preschool-aged children (ages 4–6 years) with ASD and 21 children without ASD matched on age, sex, and expressive language completed assessments of AM, executive functioning, self-related variables, and a parent–child reminiscing task. Children with ASD had less specific AM, which related to theory of mind, self-concept, and working memory. AM specificity also related to child observed autism traits. Mothers of children with ASD made more closed-ended and off-topic utterances during reminiscing, although only maternal open-ended elaborations predicted better AM in ASD.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the Logan Center, South Bend Schools Autism Division, and South Bend Head Start for facilitating recruitment. We are also grateful to Dr. Joshua John Diehl, Dr. E. Mark Cummings, Dr. David Smith, Dr. Julie Braungart-Rieker, and Heidi Miller for their valuable contributions and guidance on this project, as well as the undergraduate research assistants who worked on this project (Madison McKenna, Bailey Jaeger, Catherine Finney, and Elizabeth Whiteman). Lastly, we are very grateful for the children and families who participated in this study. This study was prepared from Dr. C.G. McDonnell’s doctoral dissertation.

Funding

This work was funded by a Dissertation Award from the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Student and Early Career Council, a Graduate Student Research Award from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at Notre Dame, and a grant from the Earnest Swarm Notre Dame Psychopathology Research Fund (all awarded to C.G. McDonnell).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, USA

    Christina G. McDonnell

  2. University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, USA

    Ruth Speidel & Kristin Valentino

  3. University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, USA

    Monica Lawson

  4. Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech, Williams Hall, Blacksburg, VA, 24060, USA

    Christina G. McDonnell

Authors
  1. Christina G. McDonnell
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  2. Ruth Speidel
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  3. Monica Lawson
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  4. Kristin Valentino
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Contributions

CGM designed the study as part of her dissertation, received funding, conceived and drafted the manuscript, and performed statistical analyses. RS, ML, and KV participated in the design and coordination of the study. In addition, RS and ML contributed to coding, and KV contributed to supervision of study assessments and participant recruitment. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christina G. McDonnell.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all caregivers who participated in the study.

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McDonnell, C.G., Speidel, R., Lawson, M. et al. Reminiscing and Autobiographical Memory in ASD: Mother–Child Conversations About Emotional Events and How Preschool-Aged Children Recall the Past. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 3085–3097 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04770-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04770-3

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