Brief Report: Self-Based and Mechanical-Based Future Thinking in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The team asked kids to picture tomorrow. Some kids had autism. Some did not.

Each child did two quick tasks. One task was about their own future. One task was about how a toy works later. The study timed answers and counted correct ideas.

Kids with autism gave fewer correct future ideas on both tasks. The gap was biggest when they had to picture their own tomorrow.

Even bright, verbal children with autism struggled. Mechanical future talk was hard. Self future talk was harder.

Hsieh et al. (2014) saw the same foresight gap in preschoolers. Naito et al. (2020) later repeated it in high-functioning six-year-olds. Three labs, same story — the deficit is stable.

Angus et al. (2015) looked at social anticipation. They found autistic kids could guess what someone might ask, but could not plan their own reply. That lines up with van Timmeren et al. (2016): self-planning is the weak spot.

Spriggs et al. (2015) showed imagination drops only when the task is social. The future-thinking paper mirrors this split. Both hint the trouble is not general imagination — it is imagination tied to self and people.

When you write goals, check future-thinking first. If a learner cannot picture owning the goal, compliance will fade. Use visual scripts, video models, or storyboards to show "future me" doing the skill. Start with object-based plans, then shift to self-plans. This small tweak can boost buy-in and maintenance.