Temporal cognition in children with autism: Tests of diachronic thinking.

Impaired diachronic thinking—(the propensity

and capacity to think about events spreading

across time)—was demonstrated in a 2-Phase study in

which children with autism were compared with age

and ability matched controls. Identical tests of diachronic

thinking were administered in both phases of

the study, but to different participant groups, with the

same results. The marked impairments shown are

therefore robust. Various non-temporal explanations

of the findings were eliminated by the results of control

tasks in Phase 2. Diachronic thinking did not correlate

with verbal or non-verbal ability, age, or mentalising

ability, consistent with other evidence of the specificity

of diachronic thinking ability. Possible causes of impaired

diachronic thinking in autism are discussed.