The Key to Successful Social Interactions

Autobiographical memory (ABM) is memory for past personal experiences and is foundational to the development of many cognitive processes. As such, ABM and social learning are developmentally intertwined and functionally dependent, and impairments in each are well-documented in autism. Evidence suggests that elaborative reminiscing (ER) causally and positively impacts neurotypical children’s ABM and social learning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a new caregiver-mediated ABM intervention that adapts the principles of ER in ways that align with best practices for supporting social learning in autistic children. Participants were 26 caregiver-child dyads; all children (ages 6–15 years) had a diagnosis of autism. We hypothesized that: (1) caregivers would demonstrate improvements in ER across three phases of study (pre-treatment, post-treatment, and follow-up) and (2) children would demonstrate improvements in supported and unsupported ABM and social learning. Results indicated that caregivers demonstrated increased elaborativeness at post-intervention, and that this was maintained at follow-up. Additionally, children demonstrated improvements in supported memory and some measures of social learning at post-intervention, and this was maintained at follow-up. Children also showed improvements in unsupported memory at post-intervention; however, this was not maintained. Results suggest that caregivers of autistic children can be trained to use ER, and that ER is associated with the development of supported memory in autistic children across a wide range of ages. Clinical applications include supporting social learning and connection in autism using ER.