This study aimed to investigate temporally extended self-awareness (awareness of one’s place in and continued existence through
time) in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), using the delayed self-recognition (DSR) paradigm (Povinelli et al., Child Development
67:1540–1554,
1996). Relative to age and verbal ability matched comparison children, children with ASD showed unattenuated performance on the
DSR task, despite showing significant impairments in theory-of-mind task performance, and a reduced propensity to use personal
pronouns to refer to themselves. The results may indicate intact temporally extended self-awareness in ASD. However, it may
be that the DSR task is not an unambiguous measure of temporally extended self-awareness and it can be passed through strategies
which do not require the possession of a temporally extended self-concept.
Keywords Autism spectrum disorder - Metarepresentation - Self-awareness - Self-concept - Self-recognition - Theory-of-mind