MEMORY DEFICITS IN EARLY INFANTILE AUTISM: SOME SIMILARITIES TO THE AMNESIC SYNDROME

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Abstract
Autistic children were compared with control children on tasks in which retention was tested by different methods. In 3 tests of recall, using named pictures, written words and spoken words as test stimuli, autistic children were impaired in comparison with age-matched normal children and with controls matched for verbal and non-verbal ability. In 1 test of forced-choice recognition of pictures, autistic children were impaired in comparison with ability-matched controls. In 3 tests of cued recall, using named pictures, written words and spoken words as test stimuli, and acoustic, graphemic and semantic cues, autistic children were not impaired in comparison with normal age-matched controls. In 1 test of paired-associate learning using non-related word pairs as test stimuli autistic children were not impaired in comparison with normal age-matched controls. These experimental paradigms were similar to some that have been used to investigate the amnesic syndrome in man. Thus findings on paired-associate learning differed in autistic and amnesic subjects, but findings on recall, recognition and cued recall were comparable. A possible parallel between autism and amnesia was discussed.

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