# Prospective Memory Performance of Autistic Adults in Everyday Life: The Role of Stress and Motivation

## TL;DR

This study found that autistic adults perform similarly to non-autistic adults in remembering future tasks in everyday life, despite experiencing higher stress.

## Contribution

This is the first study to investigate prospective memory performance of autistic individuals in naturalistic settings.

## Key findings

- Autistic and control participants showed no differences in prospective memory task performance.
- Autistic participants reported higher levels of perceived daily-life stress compared to controls.
- Autistic adults performed similar everyday activities and showed similar motivation levels as controls.

## Abstract

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to carry out intended actions in the future. The present study investigated the PM performance of autistic adults in everyday life. A total of 29 autistic participants and 30 controls matched for age, gender, and cognitive abilities completed various PM tasks (time‐based vs. event‐based; externally‐assigned vs. self‐assigned), integrated into a three‐day Experience Sampling Method (ESM) assessment. The ESM survey assessed other activities performed during the 3 days, participants' motivation, daily routine, and perceived daily‐life stress. No group differences were found between autistic and control participants in any of the various PM tasks. Autistic participants did not differ from control participants in the types of everyday activities performed or in motivation, but showed higher levels of perceived stress. This is the first study to investigate PM performance of autistic individuals in everyday life. The results suggest that autistic adults show no PM difficulties in naturalistic PM tasks.