Schema Development Affects Episodic but Not Semantic Memory in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Schemas are essential for organizing and retrieving information from memory. However, how these cognitive processes differ between children with autism spectrum disorder and their neurotypical peers is still unclear. We investigated the relationship between schema development and semantic and episodic memory across different groups, as well as whether developmental conditions influence these relationships. Autistic (n = 21) and neurotypical children (n = 21) completed tasks assessing schema development, semantic memory, and episodic memory. Results showed that neurotypical children exhibited more advanced schema development and produced richer episodic narratives than autistic children. However, both groups performed similarly on semantic memory tasks. Schema development was significantly linked to episodic memory but not to semantic memory, suggesting that schemas are more connected to contextual, experience-based retrieval than to lexical–semantic access. Moderation analyses indicated that developmental condition did not affect those relationships, implying shared schema–memory mechanisms across developmental profiles. These results fill a gap in understanding how autistic children process, organize, and retrieve information and offer new insights into the cognitive structure of memory. The results also emphasize the importance of schema integration for learning and suggest that interventions promoting conceptual flexibility and contextual understanding could improve memory and communication in children with autism