Table 1.

A review of studies investigating effects of ASD on working memory/short-term memory.

Reference	Patient population, N	Control population, N	WM Task	Findings in patients with ASD
Bennetto et al., 1996	Children and teens with ASD, 19	Learning disordered children and teens, 19	Sentence span Counting span	Impaired sentence span. Impaired counting span.
Dawson et al., 1998	Children with ASD, 20	Normal children, 20 Children with Down syndrome, 19	Delayed nonmatch to sample with object stimuli	Impaired delayed non-match to sample.
Griffith et al., 1999	Young children with ASD, 18	Normal young children, 17	3-boxes scrambled 6-boxes scrambled Spatial reversal	-all normal-
Koshino et al., 2005	Adults with ASD, 14	Normal adults, 14	Verbal N-back	-all normal-
Minshew et al., 2001	Teens and young adults with ASD, 52	Normal teens and young adults, 40	Letter sequences Word sequences Oral directions	Normal letter sequence. Impaired word sequences and oral directions.
Mottron et al., 2001	Children, teens and adults with ASD, 14	Normal children, teens and adults, 14	Free and cued verbal recall	Intact free recall. Reduced advantage in recall for semantic cues.
Ozonoff et al., 2001	Children and teens with ASD, 25	Normal children and teens, 15 Children and teens with Tourette syndrome, 15	Visual running memory Spatial span Box Search	-all normal-
Pourier et al., 2011	Adults with ASD, 16	Normal adults, 16	Digit span forward Digit span backward	Impaired performance on digit span forward and backward.
Soulieres et al., 2011	Teens and adults with ASD, 23	Normal teens and adults, 14	Block design	Enhanced block design.
Southwick et al., 2011	Children, teens and adults with ASD, 50	Normal children, teens and adults, 36	Test of Memory and learning	Impaired on all subtests.
Steele et al., 2007	Children, teens and adults with ASD, 29	Normal children, teens and adults, 29	Spatial span	Impaired performance on spatial span.
Williams et al., 2005	Children with ASD, 24	Normal children, 44	Verbal N-back Auditory WM (letter-number sequencing) Spatial span	Normal verbal and auditory WM. Impaired spatial WM.
Williams et al., 2005	Adults with ASD, 31	Normal adults, 25	Verbal N-back Auditory WM (letter-number sequencing) Spatial span	Normal verbal and auditory WM. Impaired spatial WM.
Williams et al., 2006	Children and teens with ASD, 38	Normal children and teens, 38	Digit Span Spatial WM (finger windows) Auditory WM (letter-number sequencing)	Normal digit span, and auditory WM. Impaired spatial WM.