Maternal Support Strategies during Daily Tasks Involving Working-Memory Demands: Educational Implications across Autism, Intellectual Disability, and Typical Development

This study comparatively examined mothers’ observations of children aged 4–6 years with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), intellectual disability (ID), and typical development (TD) during everyday instruction-following and routine-completion tasks considered to involve working-memory demands, together with the support strategies mothers used in these situations. A basic qualitative research design was employed. Participants were 90 mothers recruited through criterion sampling in Gaziantep, Türkiye, with 30 mothers in each developmental group. Data were collected using a Personal Information Form and a seven-question semi-structured interview form and analyzed through hybrid deductive–inductive content analysis. Frequencies and percentages were used only as descriptive indicators of code prominence within the sample. Five themes were identified: remembering and completing instructions, support strategies used by mothers during tasks involving working-memory demands, mothers’ forms of intervention in cases of forgetting, factors affecting independence and remembering in daily life, and difficulties experienced by mothers and their effects on social life. In mothers’ accounts, task segmentation, repetition, and concretization were more prominent in the ID group; visual supports, explicit language, routines, transitions, and environmental arrangements were more prominent in the ASD group; and wait time, reminder questions, and self-monitoring support were more prominent in the TD group. These patterns were descriptive rather than diagnostic-group effects. The findings suggest that family education and early childhood educational practices may benefit from individualized scaffolding that reduces task demands while considering children’s communication, attention, sensory, adaptive, and learning characteristics.