Difficulties with Reading Retention

[Gritches]

Hello everyone, and thanks for taking the time.

I am making this thread in search of answers or leads towards solving a problem that will soon become an issue for me: I have a serious problem with reading retention, and I have less than a year to fix it.

It's like this: I could read a short paragraph and then look away from the reading - and I could not begin to tell you whether that paragraph I read two seconds ago was about polar bears or genocide. Never mind 80 pages of a text book.

I was told by an expert I trust that this is a common problem among Aspies, but she didn't have any solutions except to recommend resources and strategies targeted at NTs, which I am much less than confident in.

Typically, I solve my own problems in regards to AS-related challenges (because the NT ways just don't seem to work) and have been quite successful in doing so, but I've been banging my head against this one for a while with no luck.

That's why I'm reaching out. The answers are not out there; the research is not being done, nor will it, because this isn't a "nuisance behavior" of ours. It seems to me the solutions have to come from the input of the community of those who have walked a day in each others' shoes.

The closest I've come to an answer so far is from a thread I read on a PTSD forum about this very topic. It seems that, like me, many formerly avid readers lost their ability to read after suffering their traumas. Since PTSD is common in AS, it could be that my aforementioned expert was mistaking an AS problem for a PTSD problem. Maybe it's both, or either. I don't know, nobody does.

But yeah, I'm just hoping for any sort of input on this matter. Everything helps, seriously. Thank you all.

 

[garnetflower13]

I find it interesting that your reading retention issue is being attributed to being Aspie. I have been an avid reader all my life, and have not had this problem until recently,when my complex PTSD was triggered. I have a great deal of difficulty focusing on written words, and must read them over and over, and still may not be able to make sense of what I have just read. If not currently stressed, I don't have a problem retaining at all.

 

[DanR]

I find myself slipping in and out of this sort of thing, but I think it's because of a predominance of divergent thinking. If I have a general idea about what the reading material is going to be about (a little convergent-thinking assist), I have no problem retaining it. But it it's completely new to me and I cannot determine the context, it's like my eyes are just rolling over the ink. It's hard to separate the foreground from the background. There must be hundreds of assimilation points where I might be able to hook the new information into my schema, my mental map, but none of them takes hold.
However, I find I can often catch the context if I have the computer read the first couple of paragraphs out loud to me. Then, I read the rest myself and the information sticks. The more tired I am, though, the more text the computer has to read before I 'get it.'

 

[Judge]

In hindsight it's one of the things that haunts me about discovering being on the spectrum. Whether or not I really do have a comorbid attention deficit issue or learning disorder. Reading retention and was never a strong point for me.

Learning is a process, but I find it disturbing to think that it seldom ever came easy to me.

 

[Ronin82]

I have that problem too. But for some reason, I can remember details of stories, but not remember READING the story! Or, if I'm in a more "compulsive reading" mood, I can read for hours and not remember three sentences behind me. Since I already have a college degree I've found that my reading retention has gotten much worse over the years, and even this response is not making sense in my head as a write it. I don't know how to fix this, but now that I have a Dx of Major Neurocognitive Disorder we might be able to find some approach that mitigates this. Its seriously at a point where I CAN'T learn anything new from books, at least not without some serious angst and time spent rereading everything.

Hope you find some answers.

 

[midlife aspie]

My wife constantly wonders why I read the same books multiple times (they are non-fiction). I tell her that each new reading reveals something I 'missed' the previous occasions. I think information interpretation and retention from reading depends on one's state of mind and perspective. I can read the same books from different mental perspectives and gain new insight.

 

[garnetflower13]

My wife constantly wonders why I read the same books multiple times (they are non-fiction). I tell her that each new reading reveals something I 'missed' the previous occasions. I think information interpretation and retention from reading depends on one's state of mind and perspective. I can read the same books from different mental perspectives and gain new insight.

Cool! That explains myself, as well; I always learn something new when I read a book over again, and the same goes for movies. Each time I watch a movie again I learn something that I might have missed the first time around.

 

[Kit]

And I thought my memory was bad.

 

[toothless]

i am not aspie [im formerly severe,now moderate classic] so it doesnt apply to me but i do have that problem, i have no short term memory-for example i have to constantly re read what im writing to understand what i want to say, and i have problems with information overload,i cant take in much and process it screws me up and sends me into meltdown.ive been this way my whole life and i also have mild intellectual disability which doesnt help.

 

[Jimbo]

Same as the others. I have to read something over and over and even then it might leave my brain a second later.

If I slow down and really strain my brain it might stick but then my brain gets tired. Before I knew I was an aspie I just thought I had a lazy brain.

 

[NothingToSeeHere]

I have poor reading retention, although that is attributed to my being dyslexic rather than being an aspie. I have learnt to deal with this by either re-reading something several times (when reading for enjoyment) or by taking thorough handwritten notes (for academic reading). Writing things by hand establishes them in my memory like nothing else.

 

[LittleLemon]

I honestly had no idea this could be related to autism! I'm part of a book club and it is very frustrating when I read the book too early in the month and I can't contribute to the conversation (not that I say much in the first place. I like to listen mostly) because I can't remember much. I can't provide a synopsis for my favorite book or movie storyline. As an avid reader, it's both good and bad. I can read a favorite book again and still be surprised. However, I feel it makes me appear dumb. What got me through school was taking meticulous notes. I don't take notes now because I read for pleasure, but it would help.

 

[WildCat]

Same issue here, but I'm not sure if it's due to problems with attention, short-term memory or something else altogether. As a note, I'm not dyslexic - possibly hyperlexic, which presents its own challenges.

I'll tend to skim over a long wall of text going back and forth without taking in a lot, then re-read several times which usually helps out a bit. Practice should help in the long run; if not, then you might have to try something different. I believe there's threads on this subject already, so maybe someone else could give you more insight into this.