Brief Report: Narratives of Personal Events in Childrenwith Autism and Developmental Language Disorders:Unshared Memories

摘要

Narrative analysis of personal events providesan opportunity for identifying autism specific issues relatedto language and social impairments. Eight personal eventswere elicited from three groups of schoolage children: 14high-functioning with Autism Spectrum Disorders (HFA),12 non-autistic with developmental language disorders(DLD), and 12 typically developing matched for chrono-logical age and non-verbal IQ. The coding focused onnarrative format (constituents) and style (coherence). Theanalyses indicate basic knowledge of conventional narra-tive format in all groups but a consistent lack of high-pointin HFA children's stories interpreted as a consequence oftheir lack of social understanding of narrative. The resultssuggest novel interventions to foster autobiographicalmemory in HFA children which may assist in their self-awareness development.