Episodic future thinking in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Terrett et al. (2013) asked 24 high-functioning kids with ASD and 24 typical kids to tell future stories.

Each child saw a word cue like "birthday" and had 30 seconds to describe a personal future event.

The team counted how many events the kids named and how many details each story held.

Children with ASD listed fewer future events and gave fewer clear details than peers.

The gap stayed large even though both groups had similar IQ and language scores.

Ciaramelli et al. (2018) saw the same shortfall in older kids and teens, so the problem does not fade with age.

Ye et al. (2023) pooled 34 studies and confirmed the deficit holds across tasks and language levels.

Simó-Pinatella et al. (2013) looked at a different future skill—remembering to act later. They found kids with ASD were fine when an outside cue reminded them, but poor when they had to rely on their own sense of time. Together the papers show the future-thinking trouble is broad, yet some parts can be bypassed with cues.

When you teach goal setting, self-management, or transition plans, do not assume the learner can picture the future scene. Break the plan into small visible steps, add photos, timers, or checklists, and rehearse the sequence in the real setting. These props act like the event-based cues that David et al. showed still work.