Memory and the self in autism: A review and theoretical framework.
Autistic social-communication gaps shrink inner self-talk, so expect thinner life memories even when action memory is fine.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Hall (2010) pulled together every paper on memory and self in autism. The goal was to build one clear map of why autistic people often recall less about their own lives. The review kept the lens on social-communication blocks that limit 'psychological self-knowledge' while sparing memory for physical facts or actions.
What they found
The paper argues that trouble talking about feelings and thoughts shrinks the inner story a person can tell. With a smaller inner story, autobiographical memory stays thin and self-reference effects fade. Memory for actions or facts can still look normal, because those taps do not need rich self-talk.
How this fits with other research
Pilgrim et al. (2000) showed the same pattern ten years earlier: autistic kids recalled what a peer did better than what they did themselves. The new review wraps that odd finding into a full theory.
Faught et al. (2021) later tested preschoolers and found the same gap; open-ended mom questions helped close it. The review predicted this fix, because elaborative talk feeds the psychological self.
McCabe et al. (2013) added adult data: personal stories lacked high-point structure, again matching the claim that weak self-narrative guts coherence. Together the papers form a timeline that moves from single experiment to broad framework and back to new tests.
Why it matters
When you ask, 'How was your day?' and get a blank look, switch to action cues: 'Tell me one thing you built.' Then add feeling prompts: 'Was that fun or tricky?' Use open, elaborative questions and give wait time. These steps grow the child's inner story and, over time, richer autobiographical memory.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This article reviews research on (a) autobiographical episodic and semantic memory, (b) the self-reference effect, (c) memory for the actions of self versus other (the self-enactment effect), and (d) non-autobiographical episodic memory in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and provides a theoretical framework to account for the bidirectional relationship between memory and the self in ASD. It is argued that individuals with ASD have diminished psychological self-knowledge (as a consequence of diagnostic social and communication impairments), alongside intact physical self-knowledge, resulting in an under-elaborated self-concept. Consequently, individuals with ASD show impaired autobiographical episodic memory and a reduced self-reference effect (which may each rely on psychological aspects of the self-concept) but do not show specific impairments in memory for their own rather than others' actions (which may rely on physical aspects of the self-concept). However, it is also argued that memory impairments in ASD (e.g., in non-autobiographical episodic memory) may not be entirely accounted for in terms of self-related processes. Other factors, such as deficits in memory binding, may also play a role. Finally, it is argued that deficits in autobiographical episodic memory and future thinking may result in a diminished temporally extended self-concept in ASD.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2010 · doi:10.1177/1362361309358700