Is extremely early memory associated with Autism?

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Early memories are probably stored by everyone in infancy, and remain at some subconcious level. What seems to be possibly different and remarkable about some of us on the spectrum is the ability to recall the memories consciously. I was able to do that, though I also have had a remarkable memory anyway, especially for academic study etc, so perhaps the "good early recallers" are an autistic subgroup who - for some unknown reason - have these powers of recall. I had some episodes during university exams (years ago) of sudden spontaneous recall of whole pages of course textbooks, even pages of difficult calculus - I could write them down in the exam as if the textbook was open in front of me. I couldn't "make" this happen by willing it to; it would just sometimes occur spontaneously. I'm not sure whether that counts as a 'savant' feature of memory or not. It has bemused me ever since.

Gosh! Can't remember anything for the era prior to knowing how to walk.

When I was around 10 I actually tried to remember back as far as I could go. Memory seemed to dead end around 3 years old.

Earliest specific event was being startled by Mom when she told me sharply to put down the telephone reciever I was playing with.

I can vaguely remember everything back until I was only 12 months old. I even remember when my brother was born (I was two at the time).

I did a lot of reading about early memory recall.

It's more common in autists than NTs; and the consensus of researchers seems to be that 10% of the ASD population - one in every ten - has this ability. The common factor amongst that 10% is extraordinary memory. Some of the 10% (not all) have additional savant ability, which may take the form of music savantism, mathematic savantism, art savantism, or specific talents like knowing which date a day fell on 50 years ago etc. Most of the 10% have particular savant abilities in only one of these fields; but all share the capacity for exceptional memory.

Some researchers suggest that this can be either innate (probably most) or acquired (through injury to the visual cortex perhaps or the left hemisphere) - in the injury cases, the theory is that the brain compensates by developing new abilities. (One man who had never had a music lesson on his life sat down at the piano and played very challenging pieces flawlessly) Several researchers mention visual problems in this 10% group. That interested me as I have had visual problems all my life and am losing my central vision now through macular degeneration. Despite my age, my memory is as good as it ever was, slightly better I think than earlier in my life (less stress now that I am retired).

There are NT savants too, though the incidence is relatively tiny compared to the 10% of autists. Maybe the autists are the innate ones and the NTs are the injury-cause ones...no-one really knows.

This fascinating review of evidence relating to creative and savant ability on the spectrum is the best summary I have found:
http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/43403.pdf

Interesting!

My first memories are from when I was 9 months old. I have many memories from my first few years. I can still remember those days as if they were yesterday. I was really surprised to learn from people in high school that they did not remember anything before they were quite old like 6 or 7! How could you lose so much of your life??? I guess it was pruning?

I have very early memories, I remember been in the sofa with my mom and I tried get out crawling but I got stuck, and I remember how the sofa was in a different room and she confirmed that when I was under 1 the sofa was in a different room of the house. I also remember the mirror been in the hallway and my mom showing me in the mirror and I thinking " who the hell is this baby doing in my mom's arm?" And the mirror was in hallway when I was a baby but it was in her room when I was older, I also remember my first birthday quite well...

small situations, not a full memory, but I remember some stuff from when I was around 3..
A giant spider on a window, how my room looked, sitting in the couch watching cartoons.. stuff like that..

Well I can't remember if I already replied to this thread!

But I do have memories from freakishly early infancy. I remember being in my pram -- those are the really old fashioned baby carriages that are a horizontal bed on four large wheels, with a retractable hood over the head area. I remember the view from inside that hood, and the hood had an interesting, woven trim around it. I remember the sky and people poking their head into my view. I remember throwing a tantrum in that pram, over a really uncomfortable woolen hat my mum made me wear, and I was to young to even speak and tell her why I couldn't stand the feel of the hat.

I also remember crawling into a dresser cupboard to pet our cat, who liked to hang out inside there. We also stored there a straw sunshade, and I remember pulling it out to look at it. There's a photo of me sitting outside under that sunshade, and I can't be more than 12 months old. I know I didn't imagine my memories of the sunshade from just seeing that photo, because I don't remember the circumstances of the photo but I do remember being indoors pulling the sunshade out of the cupboard.

I remember another baby buggy, one you sat more upright in; it was red with white dots. My parents used to take us for walks through woodland and fields, take my socks off, and push me through long grasses so that they tickled my feet as I held them out.

I remember an event my sister took part in at which she was the age of eight, so I must have been two.

I remember plaid trousers I hated for their discomfort level, and there is a photo of me wearing them at a vacation spot I was later told all about, how our family went there one summer. But I have zero memories of that vacation! Yet I have vivid memories of being at home in those pants, pulling at them to get them off.

This last one I have doubts about -- I have always had a memory of what seems to be (when I described it to my mother) as a memory of my baptism, from a perspective of what I could see while being held in arms. But baptisms in my day were done when the baby was very, very young, maybe a couple of months old, so this one is too freaky to be real and may possibly be "planted" in me from things my mother said. But it has always seemed real, and the first time I told my mother was the first time she mentioned things about my baptism. The freakiest thing is that I said "It wasn't the same church as the one we go to now" (this was back when I was about 11) -- and my mum confirmed that. A baby can't see much, so I don't know how I saw the church clearly enough to say that. So, this one is shakier.

I remember being a baby. I was on a changing table and my cousin Amy was over, she was maybe two or three at the time. I was kicking a receiving blanket off of me and my mother was putting it back on me. Eventually she stopped putting the blanket back and it bothered me. I wanted her to continue. We were doing something and I did not understand why it stopped. I did not think in words, of course, but I was confused and upset and I cried.

I have several memories of being a toddler as well. I have mentioned this to people before when discussing early childhood memories and mostly people tell me that I am not really remembering anything because people cannot do that. I appreciate threads like this one. It is nice to know it is not just me who remembers early memories.

I agree, it's nice to have this topic and to see all these other people who remember being a baby, toddler, etc too. I'm glad I'm not the only one who firmly believes they have memories of being a baby!

I always felt like a freak, and I too have been accused of making it up or my memories not being real, just imagination or fabricated from family stories.

But, like a member mentioned up-thread, I have no memories and draw a blank on some things my family told me about, yet I have other memories of things they hadn't told me until I brought it up with them at a later age.

Hard for me to believe this stuff you all are claiming. Whatever.

Like I said before - three is as far back as i can go. Thats seems to be fairly standard for most folks. Though it does make sense that if you are one of those memory savant people you could have deeper back memories.

Maybe some autistics have their brains hard wired earlier, while NTs and other autistics still have their brains still being kneeded like pizza dough for some years before it gets hard baked. So the memory thread of your life starts earlier than that of most folks.

Though I do have one friend who does "clearly remember standing in a play pen" as an infant at a certain moment in his memory. But that was because it was a rather traumatic moment in his crazy family's history. It was when his parents got into physical fight in front of his play pen. So that would explain it being burnt into his mind at such an early age.

Link>The Myth of Infantile Amnesia
"Thus, infantile amnesia cannot be explained solely by neurological immaturity (since both systems appear to be intact) nor by inability to remember over long delays. Instead, this inaccessibility might result from the profound differences between the kinds of retrieval cues used by adults (i.e., verbal cues) and those that would likely be required to retrieve a memory from preverbal infant experience. The alternative “reinstantiation” theory suggests that while infant memories may exist, they cannot be successfully recalled due to the massive synaptic pruning that takes place throughout neocortex in early childhood. In either of these cases, the apparent lack of early-life memory is due to its inaccessibility, rather than an actual failure of retention."

I think it is very likely that failing to trim synapses contributes to access to very early childhood memories.
Link>Study Finds That Brains With Autism Fail to Trim Synapses as They Develop
"As a baby’s brain develops, there is an explosion of synapses, the connections that allow neurons to send and receive signals. But during childhood and adolescence, the brain needs to start pruning those synapses, limiting their number so different brain areas can develop specific functions and are not overloaded with stimuli.

Now a new study suggests that in children with autism, something in the process goes awry, leaving an oversupply of synapses in at least some parts of the brain.

The finding provides clues to how autism develops from childhood on, and may help explain some symptoms like oversensitivity to noise or social experiences, as well as why many people with autism also have epileptic seizures."

It also provides clues to very early childhood memories:

Overgrowth, Pruning and Infantile Amnesia
“Although the metabolic efficiency is improved, this comes at a price, as discovered by the authors in simulating pruning in the midst of learning (just as actually occurs in childhood). Adult networks that undergo synaptic pruning actually lose the ability to retrieve the earliest memories. In humans, this phenomenon is known as ‘childhood amnesia,’ in which memories before the age of 5 are hazy, and those before 3 are almost completely inaccessible. This amnesia emerges from the networks because the earliest memories are stored in a highly distributed fashion, relying on many different neurons, while later memories are stored in a more sparse format. Therefore, early memories are more degraded by the pruning strategy because of sheer probability: more neurons participate in their representation, so they are more easily affected by changes to the network.“