A meta-analysis of impairments in autobiographical memory specificity amongst children and adolescents with psychological disorders, and potential moderating factors

Abstract

Autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) has been researched within children and adolescent populations, as it was suspected that problems in memory specificity in adulthood were rooted in childhood. A larger reduction in the AMS has repeatedly been found to be associated with psychopathology, but its underlying processes were still unclear. The severity of psychopathology as well as the CaRFAX model have been suggested as potential moderators, positing that higher severity and worse performances in CaRFAX processes would explain the greater extent of reduction in AMS in clinical than healthy populations. However, there has yet to be a comprehensive meta-analysis of the comparison of AMS between clinical and healthy children and adolescent populations, and its moderating factors. We searched Embase, PsycARTICLES and PsycINFO databases and extracted the following data from studies: the severity of clinical symptoms, the mean number or proportion of specific memories retrieved and the performance on measures of CaRFAX processes in clinical and healthy populations. The pooled effect size for the difference in AMS between the two groups of individuals was large (d = -0.807) and differed significantly from zero (p <.001), with the AMS in clinical populations being significantly lower than their healthy counterparts. Subsequent meta-regression revealed non-significant moderating effect of the differences in severity of psychological symptoms (B = -0.309, p = 0.10). The data extracted on CaRFAX processes were insufficient to be computed in further analysis. Overall, results supported the notion that individuals with psychological disorders have compromised memory specificity when compared with healthy individuals, but more research is necessary on the potential factors affecting memory specificity.