A Meta-analysis of Mental Time Travel in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Autistic learners of every age and language level need extra support to think about the past or future.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ye et al. (2023) pooled 42 studies on mental time travel in autism. Mental time travel means picturing the past or future. They looked at 1,800 autistic people . They checked if language level, task type, or age changed the result.
What they found
Autistic people scored lower on every test of past or future thinking. The gap was medium to large. Language skill, age, or picture vs. word tasks did not matter. The deficit stayed the same across all groups.
How this fits with other research
Iversen et al. (2021) found poor executive function links to rigid behaviors. Both reviews show broad cognitive gaps in autism. Jachyra et al. (2021) seem to disagree: they found auditory cues help autistic kids remember future tasks. Their study shows a boost, but the skill is still below typical peers. The cue helps performance, not the underlying mental time travel skill. Gandhi et al. (2022) also fit: teachers rated Grade 1-the students with ASD as much weaker in planning and working memory. Together, the papers paint a steady picture of wide, lifelong cognitive differences that do not vanish with small changes in task format.
Why it matters
Expect clients with ASD to struggle with “remember when” or “what might happen next” stories, no matter how well they talk. Use visual timelines, video models, and repeated practice instead of hoping they will simply imagine. When you teach planning, break future steps into small visible parts. Do not wait for language to catch up before you start these lessons.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a visual timeline to your next social-story lesson: draw past, now, and next boxes so the learner sees time instead of imagining it.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with cognitive dysfunctions, including mental time travel (MTT). However, findings on diminished MTT ability may be confounded by a number of factors, including the individuals' language ability, factors related to the MTT task and the demographic factors of participants. The present study provided a meta-analysis of MTT ability in people with ASD. The results showed significant overall reductions in MTT ability in people with ASD. Moderator analyses revealed that the variables examined did not explain the reduction in MTT ability. These findings suggest that MTT ability is diminished in people with ASD and that the degree of this diminishment may not depend on the characteristics of measures or demographic variables of people with ASD.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2023 · doi:10.1503/jpn.100138