Three types of source monitoring by children with and without autism: the role of executive function.

Earlier investigations have found mixed evidence of source monitoring impairment in autism. The present study examined three types of source monitoring ability in children with autism and typically developing children. In three different conditions, participants were presented with word lists after which they were required to recall the source of the word for reality, external and internal source monitoring tasks. Group differences were found across all three conditions, with the comparison group outperforming the children with autism. The pattern of performance across the three conditions, however, was comparable for the two groups. Specifically, performance was higher on the reality monitoring task than either the external or internal source tasks. We suggest that the overall impairment found for the children with autism may be due to broader impairments in executive function.