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Good Memory

I have a very good long term memory, I can remember particular incidents in detail from many many years ago.
I can remember names and places from when I was very young, and always remember birthdays, phone numbers and addresses.

My short term memory on the other hand is bloody awful. I'm forever forgetting appointments and dates for things at my kids school, forgetting things I need to do or things I need to get at shops etc.

Is this something that is attributed to AS?
 
its not a diagnostic trait as such but the excellent long term memory VS poor short term memory trait is commonly seen across the whole spectrum,i have it,i probably have about three seconds or less of short term memory and i forget i have to re read everything as i write to know what i was saying and my long term memory-well i can remember stuff from when i was in one of those bouncy chairs-possibly baby age,i was shown a photo of myself in it and i remembered it instantly and felt such good memories and feeling from it.
i remember sleeping in the cot to.
i have a savant memory for directions,people call me a sat nav but i dont remember places ive not drawn as a map in my head before.

sorry for waffling on about myself i just wanted to give my experience and would like to know a bit more about how your memory works-its an intresting subject.
my mum always thought i was making short term memory problems up because my long term memory is so sharp and amazing and she even brought me to the gp but he said i likely suffered a brain injury from when i reacted badly to a vaccination [one of the MMR injections it was given in singular form back in my day].

i believe autism,like ADHD causes executive function difficulties which includes a crap short term memory,you should have a read into it.
 
I'm not sure if it's AS, but my memory confuses me sometimes. Short term memory is awful, but long term is better. I have memories starting from when I was a young toddler. I can remember details of conversations decades ago and I'm great with anything that involves remembering numbers. However, I completely blanked on this week long Alaskan vacation my family took when I was 13. My husband and I ended up living in the same area my family visited, but it didn't jog my memory. This is the only life event I barely remember and it kind of alarms me. Maybe I have spotty long term memory? Or maybe it was just such a miserable trip that I've purposely erased it.

Besides that one blip, my long term memory seems to be above average. It seems like a lot of people don't remember as much from childhood as I do.

ETA: I'm not saying that to be arrogant. I remember in psychology class, we raised our hands to see how far people could remember very early childhood and I was one of the few who could remember the earliest. That surprised me.
 
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its not a diagnostic trait as such but the excellent long term memory VS poor short term memory trait is commonly seen across the whole spectrum,i have it,i probably have about three seconds or less of short term memory and i forget i have to re read everything as i write to know what i was saying and my long term memory-well i can remember stuff from when i was in one of those bouncy chairs-possibly baby age,i was shown a photo of myself in it and i remembered it instantly and felt such good memories and feeling from it.
i remember sleeping in the cot to.
i have a savant memory for directions,people call me a sat nav but i dont remember places ive not drawn as a map in my head before.

sorry for waffling on about myself i just wanted to give my experience and would like to know a bit more about how your memory works-its an intresting subject.
my mum always thought i was making short term memory problems up because my long term memory is so sharp and amazing and she even brought me to the gp but he said i likely suffered a brain injury from when i reacted badly to a vaccination [one of the MMR injections it was given in singular form back in my day].

i believe autism,like ADHD causes executive function difficulties which includes a crap short term memory,you should have a read into it.

Yeah when I'm reading I often need to go back and re-read the last few sentences, same as when I'm writing, I need to go back and read it, usually to make sure what I'm writing makes sense.

I tend to go off on a bit of a tangent and forget what the original point was
 
I'm not sure if it's AS, but my memory confuses me sometimes. Short term memory is awful, but long term is better. I have memories starting from when I was a young toddler. I can remember details of conversations decades ago and I'm great with anything that involves remembering numbers. However, I completely blanked on this week long Alaskan vacation my family took when I was 13. My husband and I ended up living in the same area my family visited, but it didn't jog my memory. This is the only life event I barely remember and it kind of alarms me. Maybe I have spotty long term memory? Or maybe it was just such a miserable trip that I've purposely erased it.

Hmmm, it is interesting that that one particular point in time evades your memory.

Have you asked your parents if anything particularly bad or traumatic happened while you were on vacation?
 
I don't know if it's related ksheehan, do know that many Aspies seem to have:

"Eidetic memory (/aɪˈdɛtɪk/; sometimes called photographic memory) is an ability to vividly recall images from memory after only a few instances of exposure, with high precision for a brief time after exposure, without using a mnemonic device."​

And I think in the case of Aspies, many do. It's specific to certain types of memory and it seems different for each person.

I do and my husband does as well. The things we remember are specific, I remember every face I've ever seen in real life, not from pictures or television, the lyrics from every song I've ever heard. My husband remembers strings of numbers sometimes twenty or more in a row, as well as musical notes.

I can barely remember the date, or phone numbers, or people's birthdays, and have to write them down on a calendar. My husband doesn't know where anything is, he can't find his own shoes or a piece of paper that he put down hours before. But ask him to sight read sheet music and he can play or sing the piece immediately without ever having heard it before.

It's interesting how memory works, and what we pay attention to specific to our interests. I forgot my Mother's ninetieth birthday last month, until the last minute and felt really quite bad about it. Often go into a store to buy something necessary that I've run out of, (in this case it was soap) and come back out with bags of things that I needed but no soap. So frustrating, but typical for people who have a tendency to 'live in their heads.'
 
I don't know if it's related ksheehan, do know that many Aspies seem to have:

"Eidetic memory (/aɪˈdɛtɪk/; sometimes called photographic memory) is an ability to vividly recall images from memory after only a few instances of exposure, with high precision for a brief time after exposure, without using a mnemonic device."​

And I think in the case of Aspies, many do. It's specific to certain types of memory and it seems different for each person.

I do and my husband does as well. The things we remember are specific, I remember every face I've ever seen in real life, not from pictures or television, the lyrics from every song I've ever heard. My husband remembers strings of numbers sometimes twenty or more in a row, as well as musical notes.

I can barely remember the date, or phone numbers, or people's birthdays, and have to write them down on a calendar. My husband doesn't know where anything is, he can't find his own shoes or a piece of paper that he put down hours before. But ask him to sight read sheet music and he can play or sing the piece immediately without ever having heard it before.

It's interesting how memory works, and what we pay attention to specific to our interests. I forgot my Mother's ninetieth birthday last month, until the last minute and felt really quite bad about it. Often go into a store to buy something necessary that I've run out of, (in this case it was soap) and come back out with bags of things that I needed but no soap. So frustrating, but typical for people who have a tendency to 'live in their heads.'

Yeah its a very interesting subject.

I remember faces too, and names.

I've just had to re-read your reply three times because I forgot what you had written lol
 
Have you asked your parents if anything particularly bad or traumatic happened while you were on vacation?

Yes, I've asked and through pictures, bits of information come back time to time. They fought a lot, but that wasn't all that unusual. I think it might be more that I just wasn't all that interested.

Something else about memory--do you learn by example? I sure don't. If someone shows me how to do something, I can't do it. I have to do it myself to really learn. In my first job, I frustrated my boss because he showed me how to do a complex order on the cash register verbally. I need it written down.

Or if a GPS tells me where to go, I couldn't recreate it unless I wrote the directions down myself and used my brain to look for streets signs instead of a computer.
 
Yes, I've asked and through pictures, bits of information come back time to time. They fought a lot, but that wasn't all that unusual. I think it might be more that I just wasn't all that interested.

Something else about memory--do you learn by example? I sure don't. If someone shows me how to do something, I can't do it. I have to do it myself to really learn. In my first job, I frustrated my boss because he showed me how to do a complex order on the cash register verbally. I need it written down.

Or if a GPS tells me where to go, I couldn't recreate it unless I wrote the directions down myself and used my brain to look for streets signs instead of a computer.

I need to write it down and be shown how to do things, repeatedly o_O I forget so quickly, I always got in trouble in jobs for forgetting how to do stuff
 
Funny, just a day or two ago I was having a "memory issue" as I call it. It's a dynamic that is slowly beginning to concern me. The joys of getting older.

My long term memory is great. Always has been. But then so was my mother's shortly before she died at 81 years of age.

Lately it bothers me that I can't seem to access the inconsequential "junk" in my head....like the names of character actors who I haven't thought of in a very long time. Kept trying to think of that guy's name Doug.....something. I know he was in "The Virginian". An old western tv show my grandfather adored in the early 60s.

I remember the star James Drury, whose acting career never really took off beyond that, so it was definitely a long term memory. Easy to recall. But that Doug guy.....his career spanned well into the 80s. Even recalled an obscure movie he was in with Ricardo Montalban. And yeah, that woman from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid....Katherine er uh.....something. Arrrrgh!

My trick? Nope...won't resort to Google or the IMDB. If I keep thinking eventually it comes back to me. Doug McClure....and Katherine Ross.

The good news? Eventually I can recall what I used to be able to instantly recall.

The bad news? This happens more frequently. It used to never happen. Basically if it's out of mind, it's REALLY out of mind. Harder to retrieve from my cerebral hard drive. Ugh.

But then hey...I'm more than twice the OP's age. Do I get a senior discount? :p

Aspie related? Hmmmm. This strikes me as a pretty common neurological dynamic. But yes, it concerns me too none the less. o_O
 
I remember faces well, but not names! Even those of people I see briefly everyday. STM stinks. I have to stage everything I will need for the day in advance or I will forget important stuff.
 
I have patchy memories of events before my 3rd birthday, and can remember bits of that birthday and Christmas. I remember my first day at school and what I was wearing that day, and the buttons on the cardigan of another girl who started in the same class the following term! I remember things that happened during that year at school, which I'm sure everybody else will have forgotten! Needless to say, I can tell you who all my teachers were right through school and college, and what subjects they taught. However, meet me, say in church, and tell me your name, and by next week, I will have forgotten it!
I don't remember long numbers unless I make a conscious effort to do so, or hear them so many times, I can't help remembering them. Give me 2 or 3 Bible passages to look up, and I'll have to ask you to repeat them separately, each one when I'm ready to find it. I'm getting better, but if you ask me where something is in the Bible, I can tell you if it'd Old or New Testament, and probably if it's in the Gospels or epistles, but that's about it. I have learnt where some of my favourites are recently, but it's a long haul - one in Jeremiah, I still keep forgetting exactly where in that book it is, and it's a long book to try to find it! I do have a couple of books on where to find it in the Bible, but they don't have everything in them.
At least reading up on autism has explained why the above happens, and I'm not alone in this.
 
Something else about memory--do you learn by example? I sure don't. If someone shows me how to do something, I can't do it. I have to do it myself to really learn.

Same, have to do it myself in order to be able to learn something new. I'll watch videos to get information on how to do something, but it only sinks in after I've done it a few times.
 
I have a very good long term memory, I can remember particular incidents in detail from many many years ago.
I can remember names and places from when I was very young, and always remember birthdays, phone numbers and addresses.

My short term memory on the other hand is bloody awful. I'm forever forgetting appointments and dates for things at my kids school, forgetting things I need to do or things I need to get at shops etc.

Is this something that is attributed to AS?

It could be.

I can remember stuff from 30 odd years ago vividly for instance.
 
I have patchy memories of events before my 3rd birthday, and can remember bits of that birthday and Christmas. I remember my first day at school and what I was wearing that day, and the buttons on the cardigan of another girl who started in the same class the following term! I remember things that happened during that year at school, which I'm sure everybody else will have forgotten! Needless to say, I can tell you who all my teachers were right through school and college, and what subjects they taught. However, meet me, say in church, and tell me your name, and by next week, I will have forgotten it!
I don't remember long numbers unless I make a conscious effort to do so, or hear them so many times, I can't help remembering them. Give me 2 or 3 Bible passages to look up, and I'll have to ask you to repeat them separately, each one when I'm ready to find it. I'm getting better, but if you ask me where something is in the Bible, I can tell you if it'd Old or New Testament, and probably if it's in the Gospels or epistles, but that's about it. I have learnt where some of my favourites are recently, but it's a long haul - one in Jeremiah, I still keep forgetting exactly where in that book it is, and it's a long book to try to find it! I do have a couple of books on where to find it in the Bible, but they don't have everything in them.
At least reading up on autism has explained why the above happens, and I'm not alone in this.

I couldn't tell you a thing about the Bible.

Yes I remember events from as young as two... of course I don't remember every thing, but many things stick out
 
There's a lot of people on the spectrum who have excellent long term memory but poor short term memory.

I'm different though, I have pretty solid short term and long term. I have pictures in my mind of certain things in my childhood and, whilst I can't recall a lot of these things, I can generally tell someone if they said something the other day. Rather allistic in that regard I guess.
 
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I don't know if it's related ksheehan, do know that many Aspies seem to have:

"Eidetic memory (/aɪˈdɛtɪk/; sometimes called photographic memory) is an ability to vividly recall images from memory after only a few instances of exposure, with high precision for a brief time after exposure, without using a mnemonic device."​

I am an example of an autie with an eidetic memory. I have no control over what my brain saves in images,both moving and still,but they are extremely detailed or what some may describe as very high definition, Although I have no control over what gets saved and what gets tossed,I can assure you that most of it is saved and buried in the filing system my brain uses. The astounding part of my memory is how fast the recall system is at recovering the data it has on record and most importantly making proper use of it.

When I do mechanical engineering,it allows me to test integrity and working of mechanisms before the actual design work goes to paper or CAD.That used to tick off a lot of highly educated people when I was able to spot the failures they had built into their designs long before the shop got the prints from them. The truth of the matter was that I was actually hated by them as a result of it :p


My learning experiences are generally hands on or by observation of others doing something. Yeah,it sounds like a pretty cool bag of tricks to some,but trust me,it is also annoying at times as even small details about my day are noted and flooded with internal images along the way to cross reference with what I see in real time :rolleyes:
 
I do not know if it is related to AS, but my short term memory is bad. This makes having conversations quite bad, I find it hard to relay what someone has said,and if I have watched something on the tele, I find it very difficult to recall what happened. Maybe it is because my brain is always a minefield of activity and does not leave much room for short term memory. I also do not know the words to most songs, even the ones I obsessively listen to over and over again.
 
I do not know if it is related to AS, but my short term memory is bad. This makes having conversations quite bad, I find it hard to relay what someone has said,and if I have watched something on the tele, I find it very difficult to recall what happened. Maybe it is because my brain is always a minefield of activity and does not leave much room for short term memory. I also do not know the words to most songs, even the ones I obsessively listen to over and over again.

Off the topic slightly but I knew instantly you were from the UK because of your use of the word "tele" lol.

I wonder if that is exactly what it is? There is so much going on in our brains at any given time that it does not have the capacity to hold on to that information?
 
I think its supposed to be down to processing. Anything in your longterm memory has already been processed, whereas your short term memory puts items in your subconscious to process them. Given the amount of input we typically receive, it makes sense for your short term memory to do that: it would be wearisome to hold things in your conscious mind while processing them.

Autobiographical note: As you may have figured, I have it this way too. I have annoyed people by asking the same question over and over (I suspect they interrupted my processing the previous times, but I cannot prove anything) and astonished the same people by recalling things that happened long ago in great detail. Remembering is like time travel to me, albeit the sort where you can't change anything.
 

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