This study examined if autistic adolescents and their non-autistic peers would differ from each other in terms of recalling self-defining and everyday memories about themselves.
Sixteen adolescents with diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (i.e., autistic adolescents) and 16 adolescents without any autism (i.e., non-autistic peers) were recruited for participation. Participants in both groups were ages 13–17 and predominantly male; autistic and non-autistic participants were matched by age and gender.
All participants were asked to describe three self-defining memories (i.e., “A memory that would help [someone] understand the kind of person you are or would tell me something about yourself...something that you feel strongly about and...have thought about a lot since it happened”) and three everyday memories that did not have to tell the listener anything about who the participant was as a person. All memories of both types had to be from events that happened at least six months prior to the study. Participants indicated whether they recalled each memory as if they were reliving it through their own eyes (i.e., first person perspective) or as an observer (i.e. third person perspective). They also rated each memory’s emotional intensity and the degree to which it was self-revealing. Finally, for each memory, researchers noted whether or not it fit the criteria for the prompt (self-defining vs. every day), coded the type of event described in the memory, rated the memory as positive or negative, and indicated whether or not the participants demonstrated that they gained insight or learning from the experience described in the memory.
Autistic and non-autistic participants did not differ on most outcome variables; in other words, the two groups of participants largely recalled and thought both types of memories in the same way, regardless if they were autistic or not. However, autistic participants were more likely to see their everyday memories as more self-revealing, whereas non-autistic participants were more likely to see their self-defining memories as more self-revealing. Autistic participants were also more likely to describe negative self-defining memories than were their non-autistic peers. Autistic participants were more likely to describe self-defining memories having to do with recreation, and their non-autistic peers were more likely to describe self-defining memories having to do with achievement. Participants in both groups rarely demonstrated any spontaneous insight when recounting memories of either type.
