Metamemory Functioning In Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background:

Metamemory entails two processes which coordinate cognition: monitoring (e.g. assessing own memory knowledge and performance) and control (e.g. allocating strategy to aid performance) (Nelson & Narens, 1990). Although it has been suggested that due to Theory of Mind difficulties, metacognition could be impaired in ASD (Baron-Cohen, 1995) little research explored this area. While Farrant et al. (1999) found no impairment in ASD knowledge about variables affecting memory, studies exploring online metacognitive monitoring accuracy produced mixed results (Wilkinson et al., 2010; Wojcik et al., under review). A study investigating the metacognitive control, found ASD children to be poorer than typical in allocating sufficient study time to achieve optimum performance (Farrant et al., 1999).

Objectives:

 The aim of this study was to explore metacognitive control in ASD children by looking at their ability to self allocate sufficient study time to achieve optimum performance. We also assessed ASD children knowledge regarding the effect of study time on memory performance (metacognitive knowledge) and their abilities to predict their memory performance (metamemory monitoring).

Methods:

21 ASD children and 21 typical children were included in this study. There were no significant group differences on age and IQ (t(40)=1.52, p=.14 and t(40)=-1.07, p=.29 respectively). All children were tested in 4 different learning conditions. In the 1^st condition, participants were given unlimited amount of study time to study 10 words. In the 2^nd condition they had double of the unlimited time condition to learn another list of 10 words and then half the unlimited condition in the 3^rd list. In the 4^th condition, one minute was given to learn the 10 words. To measure metacognitive knowledge and monitoring abilities, children were asked prior and after the study phase to predict how many words out of 10 they would be able to recall (Moulin et al., 2000).

Results:

First of all, ASD children were found to allocate the same amount of study time and subsequently achieved the same recall levels as typical children. Both groups recalled more items in the unlimited condition. However, for both groups doubling the time at learning did not improve their memory performance. ASD children were also found to predict accurately their memory performance. Finally, both groups predicted better recall with increased study time.

Conclusions:

Our results confirm that ASD children have preserved metacognitive knowledge and are able to predict their memory performance thus showing adequate monitoring abilities. ASD children were found to use a similar strategy as typical children when let free to control their study time, suggesting preserved control processes. Finally, the fact that both groups did not benefit from doubling their study time is interpreted in the context of the ‘labour in vain’ effect (Nelson & Leonasio, 1988)