Brief Report: Self-Based and Mechanical-Based Future Thinking in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

• DOI: 10.1007/s10803-016-2867-5
• Publication Date: 2016-07-26T09:32:21Z
• Authors: A. Marini; F. Ferretti; A. Chiera; R. Magni; I. Adornetti; S. Nicchiarelli; S. Vicari; G. Valeri
• Keywords: Male; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Mechanical-based future thinking; Scene construction; Self-based future thinking; Developmental and Educational Psychology; 05 social sciences; Self Concept; Thinking; Self-based future thinking; Humans; Female; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; Scene construction; Child; Mechanical-based future thinking; Follow-Up Studies; Forecasting

This brief report is a partial replication of the study by Jackson and Atance (J Dev Disabil 14:40-45, 2008) assessing nonverbal Self-based and Mechanical-based future thinking (FT) in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In a first step, these tasks were administered to 30 children with ASD. The two Self-based tasks were then modified as a verbal component could not be completely ruled out. Consequently, 77 children with ASD and 77 children with typical development received the modified Self-based FT tasks and the Mechanical-based FT tasks. We partially replicated the previous findings. Participants with ASD had impaired FT in both kinds of tasks and both groups performed better on tasks assessing Mechanical-based FT than Self-based FT. These results suggest that impairments of FT in ASD are not limited to Self-Projection.