do autistic people remember their early childhood?

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Not really from when I was a baby, but I do have a lot of really vivid memories from preschool.

I remember being held by my grandfather about 10 minutes after I was born. i can also remember about thousands of memories of the next few years. I also may have memories of being in the womb, but I think these may be created memories, as they have a different feel than the rest.

I think my memory is worse than average. I remember very little about my childhood.

It doesn't take much to prompt many memories from my infant days that I forgot I even had. Its surprising to many how many random facts I can recall about stupid minor things. Show me a photo and I sometimes can write a book about it if I wanted too.

Worse than average. Very little before 7 or 8.

I can remember back to the age of 3.

It was when I was with my mom and aunt looking at the house we were going to move into.
I remember lots of details about that.

But I do not remember anything that happened before that about our house we left to visit the new one or going back to it. Weird.

Just wanted to mention: When I used to try to turn up old memories I found I was accessing memories I'd already accessed many years ago and I was "actually" accessing "memories of memories." I also found I could still access the older memories still, but I chose to not to (in order to leave these original memories as uncorrupted as possible). I learned this gradually.

I also found that one memory could lead to another: In particular, my "strongest" memories have to do with a toddler's investigation of a Singer sewing machine treadle at 8 months old....subsequent memories "stirred up" bring back the memory of returning to the treadle....once crawling and once walking. And these memories return other associated memories directly associated with these memories (hot-hot coal stove in the kitchen, etc.).

At this point I believe, if I spent the necessary time, I could excavate a huge part of my memory, but I'd rather think forward instead of backward and these old memories don't have a practical purpose for me (or create particularly nice feelings either).

denny

I have read that we remember something that we think about afterwards because we create accessible neurological pathways to the memory. I have also read that every time we recall a memory, we are rewriting the memory. Confusing.

I have early memories from maybe age 1, they are all of sensory nature, like heavily rocking from side to side in the baby seat of the car and I still "feel" the feeling and biting into it and the feeling of biting into it and the smell of it, this sort of memories.

some woman tried taking you away from your mom, kindap you, you mean? and your parents would've physically abused you. that sucks. not too happy a childhood, i think.

I remember almost drowning when I was 3. We were in the pool and dad set me on a step and walked away to my brother in his floating tube. I stepped off the step for some reason. The last thing I remember is bobbing in the water as my dad walked away.

Mom got me out but for years she told me it was dad. She worshipped her own father and wanted me to have a good relationship with mine so always be tried to give him credit for nice things she did and I took the blame for things he did. Only problem was he did to much shady crap right in front of me for her to repair.

I can remember mom dressing me and teaching me to tie my shoes but I don't think I was that far behind other kids.

I remeber a lot since I was about 6+ months old, especially compared to my mother (non-aspie) who can't remember before she was 7 or 8 years old...

I can remember living at my grandparents house, I only lived with them until I was 1.5 years old. (I have memories, but some are fuzzy, nothing really stands out, but I do remember.)
Nothing really happened, just everday life. I do remember some of their dogs. I remember crawling around the house and outside. I remember walking. I remember the toys and stuffed animals in my old room. I remember making someone follow me into my room and holding my arms up at the crib, telling them that I wanted in.

(after 1.5 year old is when I really started to have a good memory.)
I can remember moving out of my grandparents and into the apartment that we moved in/lived in for only 8 months. I remember the rooms/where they were in the apartment, the lay out of the complex, which side of the hallway we were on, the neighbors and which ones had kids, the neighbors names, what the inside of their apartments looked like. And I especially remember the playground!!

Right now, I am 18/almost 19, I have a good long term memory, but if you ask me about something that happened 10 minutes ago, I can't tell you, but if you ask me about the same thing the next day I have no problem telling you.. (I don't know if there is a term for that...? I just take a little bit to process things I guess?)

That sort of makes sense, both from a neuroscience point of view (the way memory works is not fully understood but the brain connectivity keeps changing as it is working ; there is no such thing as "read-only" access) and with several experiments that show that memory is globally far less reliable than what we usually think. If you independently ask two different people their recollections of an event they both took part to a few years ago (for example you ask married people about their wedding), usually the very general things will match but the details will be completely different. People usually don't even realize that because while they are discussing past event they are constantly aligning towards a consensus and thus "rewriting" their common history unconsciously.

Maybe autistic memory somehow works differently. Some autistic people have eidetic or photographic memory, and more generally seeing details more easily than the global picture and having different socialization processes certainly change things.

My earliest was in the incubator in the NICU. Secnd is at age 2 during a picture my mother was taking of me with someone we knew, sitting in autumn or winter.

I couldn't give either answer to the poll, because I have very little memory of my childhood. My memories only become clear from about 9-10 on. So my siblings talk all the time about things I used to do and say, and I'm just clueless. It's strange.

I have a very clear memory of being at an outdoor pool at 3 years of age. I was with my father and brother and my older brother was in the 'big kid' pool while I was in the kiddie pool. Since I was quite tall, I could never really submerse myself and show off what a good swimmer I was. I decided when dad wasn't looking to go into the shallow end of the big kid pool and see if I could swim around the shallow end. Well, let's just say I sunk like a stone and remember thinking "oh dear, how am I going to get out of this?" After about 30 seconds my brother alertly pulled me out in a panic and I couldn't figure out why. After all, I was a "good" swimmer and would have figured it out. I can still remember it was a sunny day about 25C out, which was hot where I grew up as a child and how cold the big kid water was compared to the kiddy pool. I checked out the pool and my memory was nearly 100% accurate (and the pool desperately needs maintenace too )

So, to answer the OPs question, yes I have very clear memories from 3 onward and some unverifiable ones from as early as 6 months If that 6 month memory is true (and all evidence points to yes) it was the most incredible feeling in the world, like I was in Heaven and have never experience such overwhelming joy before. No wonder babies smile so much! I also had what I suspect were memories of a past life in the 60s and 70s but nothing can conclusively prove or disprove it.


I wonder that too. Many (all?) the people I know will swear up and down that for example a store or restaurant opened in 19XX while I will tell them "no, it was actually December 7, 1987 at 11am". Every single time I can research it I have been correct, without exception! People must assume I just look it up: they can't believe I can literally remember details like that just like they happened yesterday. Note to any NTs reading this: having such a photographic memory is a TERRIBLE thing overall though because you can NEVER forget the bad things done to you in the past no matter how hard you try!