Being aware of own performance: how accurately do children with autism spectrum disorder judge own memory performance?

Elmose et al. (2014) asked kids to look at pictures and later judge how well they remembered them.

Some kids had autism, some did not. The researchers compared how well each group could predict their own memory.

They used both social pictures (faces) and non-social pictures (objects) to see if picture type mattered.

Both groups judged their memory equally well. There was no big difference between kids with autism and typical kids.

A small trend showed autistic kids did slightly better with objects, while typical kids did slightly better with faces.

Overall, the study found no significant group difference in metacognitive accuracy.

Wojcik et al. (2014) tested autistic teens and got the same null result, showing the finding holds across age groups.

Bromley et al. (1998) seems to disagree - they found autistic kids struggled to notice and correct their own errors. The difference is task type: error-correction vs memory judgment.

Feldman et al. (1999) also appears contradictory - they found autistic kids couldn't judge when they'd studied enough. But they tested recall readiness (future performance), while Mette tested past memory accuracy.

You can trust that autistic children can accurately judge their own memory performance. This means you don't need to teach basic metacognitive awareness - it's already there. However, check your stimulus type if you assess metacognition: autistic kids may perform slightly better with non-social materials. Use this knowledge to let students self-monitor their learning and choose appropriate review strategies.