Considerable research has demonstrated that autistic spectrum disorders are associated with an impaired theory of mind (e.g. Baron-Cohen, 1995). Much evidence for theory of mind deficits has come from the false belief paradigm. Recently evidence using a new false belief task has demonstrated that individuals with ASD have both impaired understanding of their own mind as well as the mind of others ( Williams & Happé, 2009). Another problem associated with autistic spectrum disorder is the impaired ability to retrieve autobiographical memories (Crane & Goddard, 2008). Only one study has investigated the relationship between theory of mind and autobiographical memory retrieval and this study did not assess theory of mind deficits for information about the self (Adler et al. 2010).
Objectives:
The present study investigated the following issues. First we investigated whether theory of mind deficits will be present in theory of mind tests for both self and other s as compared to controls. Secondly within the ASD sample the deficits for theory of mind beliefs for self will be more impaired than the ToM deficits for others. Third relative to controls the ASD participants will be poorer in retrieving autobiographical memory. Fourth there will be a relationship between theory of mind and the ability to retrieve autobiographical memories, particularly for false belief questions relating to self.
Methods:
Children between the ages of 6 and 12 with ASD and matched controls completed 1.) a ToM task assessing both self and other false belief understanding; 2.) an autobiographical memory task assessing both episodic and semantic retrieval3.) the British Picture Vocabulary test 4.) the Childhood Autism Spectrum test
Results: Thirteen children with ASD performed significantly less well on the other person false belief task compared to 18 controls. The ASD group also performed significantly less well on the a autobiographical memory task in terms of both episodic and semantic recall; 3.) the ASD group’s performance on both the self and other person ToM task was positively correlated with the ability to recall episodic autobiographical memories
Conclusions:
Counter to Williams and Happé, that there did not seem to be a disparity between the understanding of one’s own beliefs and the beliefs of others. However, there appear to be deficits in retrieving both semantic and episodic autobiographical memory retrieval in line with previous research. Further there appears to be a relationship between theory of mind and episodic autobiographical memory in ASD, participants. In particular poorer performance on the plasters task was associated with greater difficulty in retrieving episodic memories.
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