Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Previous research with typically developing (TD) childrenand adults show an advantage of active control for episodicmemory as compared to conditions lacking this control. Thepresent study attempts to replicate this effect in autisticchildren. Six- to 12-year-old autistic children (n = 30) wereinstructed to remember as many of 64 presented objects aspossible. For half of the materials presented, participantscould decide the order and pacing of study (Active condition).For the other half, they passively observed the study decisionsof a previous participant (Yoked condition). We found thatrecognition memory was more accurate for objects studied inthe active as compared to the yoked condition, even after aweek-long delay. The magnitude of the effect was comparableto that obtained in previous studies with TD children andadults, suggesting a strong robustness for the benefits ofactive learning. We discuss how pedagogical approaches maybe encouraged to utilize self-directed learning strategies topromote inclusive learning.