其他摘要 | Prospective memory (PM) refers to remembering to perform an intended plan in the future (such as remembering to bring homework to school, etc.). When children enter school, they will face more complex campus life and social situations than before. The impairment of PM may cause difficulties for children to live an independent life, complete their assignments and develop good peer relationships. PM impairment was found in the childhood-onset disease—autism, and the degree of deficit varies with the type of PM cues. In the research of autism, more and more researchers considered autism from the perspective of spectrum and continuum. They argued that the general population and relatives with autism would show behavior and cognitive impairment similar to autistic patients. Recent studies have shown that children with higher autistic traits displays impairment in executive functions. Therefore, children with high autistic traits may also have PM impairment. However, there is still a lack of research to explore the relationship between autistic traits and PM in school-age children
The present thesis aimed to explore the relationship between autistic traits and prospective memory via three studies, and answer the two questions: First, what is the relationship between autistic traits and PM functions, and do executive functions mediate the relationship? Second, do children with higher autistic traits have inferior PM function when compared with those with lower autistic traits, and does the degree of PM impairment vary with the type of PM cues?
In Study 1, the relationship between PM and autistic traits was explored in school-age children. A total of 80 children aged 7-12 completed the computer-based PM task, the scenario-based PM tasks, the self-rated questionnaire of PM, and also the self-rating questionnaire of autistic traits. The results showed that the higher the level of autistic traits, the higher rate of self-reported PM errors in everyday life. However, the correlations between autistic traits and performance of the computer-based PM task and the scenario-based PM task were not significant.
In Study 2, we first validated the prospective and retrospective memory (RM) questionnaire for children (PRMQC) in a sample of 741 pairs of 7-12 year old children and their parents. The results showed that the reliability and validity of children and parent-rating PRMQC were good, and both versions supported the two- PM-RM correlated factor model. Secondly, the relationship between autistic traits and PM, as well as the mediating role of executive functions was investigated using a sample of 837 parents, who completed the parent-reporting questionnaires. The results indicated that higher level of autistic traits was associated with more PM failures and executive dysfunctions in everyday life. Crucially, executive functions fully mediated the relationship between autistic traits and PM.
In Study 3, we investigated the PM performance in children with high-level autistic traits. Firstly, we adapted a computer-based PM task (i.e., the fishing game). Secondly, a total of 468 parents completed the questionnaires to evaluate children’s PM function and autistic traits, and 40 pairs of children with higher and lower autistic traits were selected. All children completed the computer-based PM tasks involving time-, event- and activity-based cues, and the executive function tasks. There was no significant group difference in all indexes of the three PM tasks and the executive function tasks.
To sum up, the main research question of the present study concerns with the relationship between autistic traits and PM in school-age children. Both self-report and parent-rating findings indicated that the higher the level of autistic traits of school-age children, the more PM errors reported in daily life. However, group comparisons indicated that children with higher autistic traits show no impairment in the laboratory/computer-based PM tasks. These findings suggest that the relationships between autistic traits and PM in school-age children were complex and tend to be influenced by measurements (i.e., questionnaires vs. computer-based task). Compared with the laboratory-based PM tasks, the relationship between autistic traits and PM was more evident when questionnaires were used to reflect PM functions in everyday life.
Moreover, executive function played a partial mediating role in the relationship between autistic traits and PM, which increases the understanding of underlying mechanism of the relationship. In short, this study focuses on the research questions that were less investigated by previous researchers and examined the relationship between autistic traits and PM in school-age children. At the same time, the computer-based tasks and questionnaires for measuring PM in school-age children were adapted, and these tools may facilitate investigation of children’s PM functions in a more comprehensive way. |
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