Self-Disorders in Individuals with Autistic Traits: Contribution of Reduced Autobiographical Reasoning Capacities.

Berna et al. (2016) asked adults to fill out online surveys. The surveys measured autistic traits, self-concept clarity, and how people make sense of key life memories.

The team wanted to know if trouble turning memories into personal lessons explains why some adults feel unsure about who they are.

Adults scoring high on autistic traits reported a fuzzier picture of themselves. The link was not direct: the fuzziness showed up only when people also struggled to extract meaning from past events.

In short, weak meaning-making acted like a bridge between autistic traits and unclear self-concept.

Robinson et al. (2017) saw the same memory-self loop in diagnosed autistic teens, giving a youth snapshot of the same story.

Godfrey et al. (2023) extended the idea by showing that autistic adults under-use thematic gist when recalling narratives over long delays, adding a time element.

McGarty et al. (2018) seems to disagree: they found intact self-bias in perception tasks. The clash fades when you notice they tested quick picture judgments, not life-story meaning, so different domains can yield different results.

If a client can list facts about themselves but sounds vague or contradictory, probe how they talk about past events. Prompt them to spell out what each memory taught them. Adding explicit meaning-making questions to interviews or social stories may sharpen self-knowledge and support identity-building goals.