Future thinking in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A pilot study.

This study examined future thinking ability in children with autism spectrum disorders (CWA) (11 males, 1 female; 4 years 8 months – 13 years 1 month (4;8 – 13;1)). CWA show deficits in various aspects of their development, including theory of mind (ToM) understanding. In light of recent theorizing about the potential link between ToM and future thinking, we hypothesized that CWA should have greater difficulty making predictions about the psychological world and, notably, the “future self,” than the physical/mechanical world. Results confirmed this hypothesis: CWA scored significantly lower on self than mechanical tasks. Although only a pilot study, these findings are an important addition to the body of autism literature which, to date, has not targeted future thinking skills. Children with autism (CWA) exhibit deficient social interaction and communication skills, an unusual insistence on regularity, and abnormal adherence to repetitive patterns of behaviour (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000). With respect to social understanding, specifically, there is now consensus that CWA show deficits on tasks that assess Theory of Mind (ToM) (Tager-Flusberg, 2007). ToM skills are crucial to our understanding and assigning of mental states to self and other (Premack & Woodruff, 1978). According to the well-known ToM account of autism (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985), even the most high-functioning CWA develop only low-level ToM skills. This is in stark contrast to typically-developing children Jackson and Atance Future Thinking in Autism JoDD 2 (TDC) who acquire an elementary understanding of mental states by age two, with further development in the preschool years (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001; Wellman, Phillips, & Rodriguez, 2000). Without an intact ToM, CWA have difficulty using mental states to predict and explain others’ behaviour (Frith, Happe, & Siddons, 1994). As a result, they are developmentally delayed in their ability to communicate with others, to form relationships, and to make sense of their social milieu. Theory of Mind and Future Thinking Future thinking is an important aspect of human cognition that, like memory (Tulving, 1984), can be divided into two types: semantic and episodic. Similar to episodic memory which allows an individual to re-experience an event, episodic future thinking allows an individual to preexperience an event (Atance & O’Neill, 2001). Episodic future thinking encompasses more than simply imagining oneself in the future; it involves developing a plan that takes into account one’s specific situation (Atance & O’Neill, 2001). Behavioural evidence indicates that episodic future thinking skills (and mental time travel more broadly) emerge around age 4 (Atance & O’Neill, 2005; Suddendorf & Busby, 2005). According to Levine et al. (1998), this episodic awareness supports the formulation of future-oriented goals, and supports the implementation of the behavioural guidance system necessary to achieve them. A number of researchers have argued that the ability to mentally project oneself into the future (episodic future thinking) is related to ToM and, specifically, to the understanding that others can have different perspectives from one’s own (Atance & O’Neill, 2005; Moore, Barresi, & Thompson, 1998; Suddendorf & Corballis, 1997). When projecting oneself into the future, the individual must adopt the perspective of a future self, rather than that of another person. Nonetheless, neurophysiological evidence indicates an overlap in the brain structures underlying these two forms of perspective-taking, supporting the notion that they are intimately related (Buckner & Carroll, 2006). As such, it is reasonable to conclude that individuals who have deficits in ToM abilities – as is the case with autism – may also show similar deficits in episodic future thinking or, simply put, in projecting the self into the future. Evidence for a Future Thinking Deficit in Autism Individuals with autism often demonstrate excessive dependence on repetitive and stereotyped behaviours and lack the behavioural flexibility seen in typical development (APA, 2000). It is plausible that such inflexibility stems from underlying difficulties with planning and future thinking (Suddendorf & Corballis, 1997). Interestingly, some patients with traumatic brain injuries are characterized by an inability to think about the future and also show behavioural similarities to individuals with autism. Specifically, these patients demonstrate impaired selfregulation, and their behaviour tends to be driven either by generic, learned rules about how one should behave or by irrelevant environmental goals, rather than by specific goals and intentions relating to their identity and future self. As a result, they often demonstrate inappropriate habits or routines (Levine et al., 1998). Given the evidence just discussed, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the often stereotyped and inflexible behaviour seen in individuals with autism may reflect an inability to mentally project into the future. However, Jackson and Atance Future Thinking in Autism JoDD 3 whether CWA do indeed show deficits on tasks specifically designed to assess future thinking has not yet been examined. Self-Based versus Mechanical-Based Tasks: A Pilot Study Previous studies have found that CWA have significant deficits in episodic memory, another form of “mental time travel” that is similar to episodic future thinking (Powell & Jordan, 1993). Suddendorf and Corballis (1997) argue that these episodic memory deficits may be due to the inability to form a relationship between one’s past and present self, and to dissociate from one’s own current state. Since CWA show deficits in ToM skills and episodic memory, then one might also expect them to show deficits in episodic future thinking (cf. Suddendorf & Corballis). If so, then this would support the claim that CWA are impaired in their sense of past, present, and future selves. In contrast, CWA may be less impaired on tasks that require them to make predictions about the physical world, which presumably does not rely on the capacity to envision the self in the future. Baron-Cohen (1997) found that CWA performed better than matched controls on tasks involving an understanding of physical causality. Other clinical and research reports suggest that CWA relate more effectively to physical objects and tasks than to psychological tasks (Binnie & Williams, 2003). Therefore, future thinking tasks which require predicting a physical, or mechanical, end state (hereafter referred to as mechanical-based future thinking tasks), rather than a psychological, or “personal”, one (hereafter referred to as self-based future thinking tasks), may also be easier for these children. In the current study, we decided to administer future thinking tasks that assessed the ability to think about the shortterm, rather than the long-term, future. This is because thinking about the near future may rely less on imaginative capacity (which is known to be impaired in CWA) and in typical development, at least, seems to emerge prior to the capacity to contemplate the more remote future (Hudson, 2006).

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