[A specific recollection phenomenon seen in autistic patients: the time slip phenomenon in autism]

The author noticed a specific symptom of autism which has rarely been reported. Some autistic children and adolescents suddenly remember an event in the distant and treat it as if it were happening right now. Although ecmnesia are known as similar recollection phenomenon, this phenomenon seems closely related to autism itself, so the author calls this symptom "the time slip phenomenon." In this paper, the symptom is described and the phenomenon is analyzed psychopathologically. Of 120 autistics who were more than 6 years of age and who were being followed-up by the author, 8 patients showed the time slip phenomenon at the time of investigation, and in 15 others this phenomenon had been noticed by their family in the past. Of 66 mentally retarded patients who were more than 6 years of age, only 1 had a similar sudden recollection of a past event. Statistical significance (p < .05) was shown between autistics and mentally retarded. The time slip phenomenon can be summarized by the following clinical characteristics: 1. The time slip phenomenon was seen in autistic patients who had high intellectual ability but were unstable and maladjusted emotionally. 2. The trigger was mood or an emotional experience at the time, and patients recalled the past event, which had sometimes occurred ten years before or more, in the same emotional state as it had occurred. 3. The autistics treated the remembered event as if it were happening right now or as if it had just occurred. 4. Patients sometimes recalled events that occurred as early as at one to two years of age when they had just started or even before they had started talking, that is, at an age when it is usually impossible for the average person to remember. In comparison with frequent recollection phenomena of other psychiatric disorders, the time slip phenomenon was similar to the pattern of recollection seen in post-traumatic stress disorders, but differed in that the remembered experience of the time slip phenomenon was not traumatic. Recollection phenomenon seen in borderline personality disorders and schizophrenic disorders differed from the time slip phenomenon, because there were distortions of the recalled events in these other disorders. Reports of recollections by autistic adults revealing a very threatening world in early life even in high function autism make the author suspect that the early life of the autistic is experienced as frightening even under ordinary circumstances.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)