Different verbal learning strategies in autism spectrum disorder: evidence from the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test.
High-functioning people with ASD can recall as many words yet still build the early-list portion more slowly—check the curve, not just the total.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test to high-functioning teens and adults with ASD and to same-age peers.
They tracked how many words each group recalled after every list and where in the list the words came from.
What they found
Both groups recalled the same total number of words.
The ASD group added new words to the early-list, or primacy, section more slowly across trials.
How this fits with other research
Cardillo et al. (2022) saw a similar story in visuospatial tasks: overall ROCFT copy scores looked fine, yet kids with ASD used a step-by-step instead of big-picture plan.
Together the two papers show that intact total scores can hide different learning paths in ASD.
Edwards et al. (2007) found no group gap in basic phoneme hearing, matching the idea that simple auditory input is okay while higher-order sequencing lags.
Why it matters
Total recall numbers can fool you. Plot the serial-position curve to see if the learner is still stuck on the first few items after several trials. If primacy growth is slow, break lists into smaller chunks and rehearse the early items first.
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Join Free →After each learning trial, mark which part of the list the learner recalls and graph it to spot a lagging primacy chunk.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, which requires the free recall of the same list of 15 unrelated words over 5 trials, was administered to 21 high-functioning adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 21 matched typical individuals. The groups showed similar overall levels of free recall, rates of learning over trials and subjective organisation of their recall. However, the primacy portion of the serial position curve of the ASD participants showed slower growth over trials than that of the typical participants. The implications of this finding for our understanding of memory in ASD are discussed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2009 · doi:10.1007/s10803-009-0697-4