Do children with autism have difficulty with the concept of time or identifying the order of events?

Interesting question. I have an 11 yr old daughter who has autism. I can answer regarding my experience with her, but that's just one child with autism. She's been able to tell time from age 5 with amazing accuracy on the analog clock. So much so that on a Kindergarten assessment she asked the teacher "How do you spell Eleven fifty nine" because she didn't think the numbers lined up exactly to 12 o'clock like the test was indicating as the correct answer.

At age six she was obsessed with cake baking, so much so that I had to get out a calender and mark every other Saturday at 9:00 as cake baking time or we'd have cake daily. You better believe she would come to me, at the appointed time "It's Saturday at 9:00, time to bake a cake!"

Now, language comprehension is another matter all together. I think that you're on the right track with your experience regarding children with autism. My daughter does fine with fluency, is an amazing speller, but her comprehension is about 3 grade levels lower than her current grade 6. Language is too abstract for her, and comprehension is difficult. She would not be able to retell a story very well, would get frustrated and find a way to get out of the situation. Asking her to tell you about her day, from breakfast on would be to difficult for her. She wouldn't understand what you were asking. You would have to lead her step by step, and she could fill in the blanks, but an open ended abstract question like "Tell me everything you did today starting with what you ate for breakfast" is going to get you an answer of "I went to school, now will you leave me alone?" English is like a foreign language to my daughter. Her vocab and conversation has improved greatly but she's still several years behind same age peers.

If she reads a short story and there are pictures to cut out and put in order, she can almost always do that just fine. Ordering events, sequencing, and motor planning activities have never been a major issue for her.

Now, MATH?? That was her first language and she has gotten straight A's in math ever since she started mainstreaming for that subject in 3rd grade. The only modifications she has is less homework. Once she has a concept mastered, there is no reason for reinforcement homework. It's locked in stone. Homework on something she knows tends to make her frustrated and full of anxiety. She takes the same tests, does the same classwork, but doesn't have the homework load most of the time because she doesn't need it. It's concrete, follows rules and patterns that she understands intrinsically.

Did that help?

Edited to add: I have to tell you something after re-reading your question regarding something that happened last week, last year, this morning.

My daughter tends to have high anxiety over certain issues/events. When such an event/issue occurs, not only does her anxiety spiral out of control, but she recycles every similar anxiety producing event she can remember and throws them into her perseverative monologue. It may appear that she doesn't distinguish that which happened 3 years ago to the current event, but she does. It's just that they were also very vivid with their imprinting and it pops out.

it depends on the idividual

i have asperger's syndrome ( a high functioning form of autism) and i have a VERY hard time dealing with time. i honestly cannot tell the difference between a half an hour and 5 minutes especially when i get involved with something.

also when i tr recall things i have a hard time remembering them in order or which happened first

especially have a hard time trying to remember where i put something or saw something last like if i put something down if i try to remember where i saw it last i cant do that. i cant think of places i saw it but i cant determine which as the last time i saw the item

Well when I was like 3 yes, like I would put my right shoe on my left foot. But then my sister told me how to do it, my left hand makes an L shape! That's how I knew it until I just knew it by heart :P Rosie