Episodic Foresight In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder:Effects Of Episodic Memory And Semantic Experience

Episodic foresight refers to individuals pre-experience future possible events.In the mid-1980’s,researchers had published papers about memories for the future and reached a climax at the turn of the century.At present,the research of cognitive mechanism of episodic foresight gradually turns their attention from the contribution of episodic memory to focus on synergistic mechanism of episodic memory and semantic memory.The object of study is also transferred from the general population to special groups to find the breakthrough to reveal the cognitive mechanism.This study includes three parts.Study 1 uses picture-book task to identify differences of episodic memory and episodic foresight between children with autism(n=27)and typically developing(n=31).Study 2 uses the item-choice task to further verify the results of Study 1,and introduces the semantic experience task to investigate whether there are differences of semantic experience between two groups(ASD,n=20;TD,n=20),especially analysing correlations among episodic memory,semantic experience,and episodic foresight.Study 3uses Study 2’s tasks to investigate the effects of episodic memory and semantic experience in episodic foresight with 3-year-old(n=25)and 4-year-old(n=25)children,and importantly through comparing Study 3’s results with Study 2’s,the aim is to find whether there are different data patterns between children with ASD and TD.The results show that:(1)The episodic memory and episodic foresight of ASD children are significantly worse than the TD’s,but two groups’ semantic experience was not significantly different,suggesting that ASD children’s episodic memory and episodic foresight damaged,however,semantic experience preserved well.(2)ASD’s correlation between episodic memory and episodic foresight is significant,and the correlation between ASD children’s semantic experience and episodic foresight is also improved and even overrides children with TD’s,suggesting that semantic experience maybe directly supports episodic foresight,in addition to episodic memory.(3)The research with 3-and 4-children shows that episodic memory scaffolded by semantic experience is pivotal to episodic foresight with ages rising.