Suggestibility and false memories in relation to intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder: a meta-analytic review.
Expect higher false-memory risk in clients with ID but lower risk in those with ASD when conducting interviews or assessments.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Mruzek et al. (2019) pooled every experiment they could find on suggestibility and false memories.
They compared people with intellectual disability (ID) and people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to typical controls.
The team used meta-analysis, a method that averages results across many studies to see the big picture.
What they found
People with ID were more likely to accept false hints and report things that never happened.
Surprisingly, people with ASD were less suggestible than controls; they resisted leading questions.
The pattern was strong enough to show up in the averaged data from many labs.
How this fits with other research
Spriggs et al. (2016) looked only at Down syndrome, one kind of ID. They found no extra suggestibility when IQ was matched.
The meta-analysis still finds a boost in suggestibility across the whole ID group. The gap closes when IQ is controlled, so both papers agree.
Ye et al. (2023) show ASD minds have trouble with mental time travel. Fewer false memories may link to this cooler, detail-focused style.
Pellecchia et al. (2016) and Maddox et al. (2015) also find weaker relational memory in ASD. Less guessing may protect these clients from false details.
Why it matters
During intake interviews, use extra care with clients who have ID. Give breaks, avoid leading questions, and check answers twice. With ASD clients, do not assume gullibility; they may need more open-ended prompts to share what they actually recall. These small shifts improve the accuracy of your assessments and keep testimony, treatment plans, and safety reports closer to the truth.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: A systematic literature review was conducted to evaluate previous research that examined intellectual disability (ID) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in relation to memory distortions (i.e. suggestibility and false memories). There were two goals for the current study; the first goal was to identify significant trends in past literature that fulfilled previously established selection criteria. The second goal was to establish reliability and effect sizes for suggestibility and false memory for samples with diagnoses of ID or ASD. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Articles that were selected for inclusion in the current study were required to have a clinically diagnosed sample, as well as a non-clinical control group. Studies were also required to have a post-hoc power score higher than .30 to prevent the effects of underpowered studies and limit the potential for publication bias. Selected studies were also required to have provided pertinent information required to complete the analyses (e.g. means, standard deviations, p-values, or correlation coefficients). Any study that did not provide the required information was excluded. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Two empirical Bayes omnibus analyses revealed a significant effect for participants diagnosed with ID (z = 6.10, p < .001), which supported the researchers' hypothesis. The results indicated increased susceptibility toward memory suggestibility and false memories when compared with the general population. However, the results of the analyses did not support the researchers' hypothesis regarding participants diagnosed with ASD. The analyses indicated that participants diagnosed with ASD displayed decreased suggestibility and were less likely to develop false memories (z = -2.37, p = 0.018).
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2019 · doi:10.1111/jir.12668