Have you heard? Autistic children, but not controls, benefit from auditory prospective memory cues

The current study was the first to investigate the impact of cue salience (distinctiveness) on prospective memory (PM) in autistic children and non-autistic controls. As atypical sensory reactivity is now considered a core... [ view full abstract ]

The current study was the first to investigate the impact of cue salience (distinctiveness) on prospective memory (PM) in autistic children and non-autistic controls. As atypical sensory reactivity is now considered a core characteristic of autism (DSM-5), with the auditory modality reportedly most affected, the current study was also unique in investigating the impact of both visual and auditory cue salience. Participants were required to respond to target cues (PM task), whilst engaged in an ongoing task, under 3 conditions: low cue salience, high visual cue salience and high auditory cue salience. Results revealed both groups were faster in reacting to the cues of the PM task in the high visual salience condition than in the low salience condition, but only autistic participants were faster in the high auditory salience condition. Thus, whilst all children may benefit from increased visual cue salience, autistic children, many of whom experience atypical auditory sensitivity, may be particularly able to take advantage of increased auditory salience. The practical implications, and the ways in which cue salience may be used to support autistic children in their everyday lives, will be discussed. Ethical approval, as well as parent and participant written informed consent, was secured prior to testing, and all data was processed anonymously.