Source monitoring by children with autism.

The team asked kids with autism and kids without autism to play a simple word game.

Each child heard some words and said some words aloud. Later they had to pick which words they had said.

This is called reality monitoring: knowing if you did something or just heard about it.

Both groups got the same number of answers right.

Kids with autism were just as good at remembering which words they had said.

No special monitoring deficit showed up on this task.

Bromley et al. (1998) looked at the same year and the same age group, but used a rocket game. In that task kids with autism missed their own errors far more often.

The clash is only on the surface. One task checks if you know you said a word. The other checks if you fix an error you can see. Different skills, different answers.

Grainger et al. (2014) later tested adults with the same null result, showing the intact skill can last into adulthood.

Do not assume a global “self-monitoring problem” in autism. Match your probe to the skill you need. If you want to know whether a learner recalls saying a rule, a simple check like “Did you say it or did I?” should work fine. If you need fast error correction, give clear visual cues and extra practice instead of trusting the learner to notice alone.