Aspergers and memory

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First of all, should I spell it with an apostrophe between the r and s, like Asperger's, or did I do it correct in the subject title?

Anyway, I have always had a crazy good memory. I used to think it was a photographic memory. In hindsight, a lot of it is Aspie fascination stuff. For instance, I knew every player in the NBA, the best starting lineups and secondary lineups for each team, could recite the height, weight, points per game, and other stats of each player. I also knew the order of the presidents of the US, with the years they served, their parties, their VP's, etc.

I also remember events and details in a play-by-play format. Things from when I was four. I can fast forward and rewind. It's pretty bizarre.

I remember all the things most people forget. This especially came in handy with chemistry when I had to memorize the periodic table.

So what is this ability? It's not like I recreate every detail of an image after viewing it. I rarely remember shirt color or eye color.

Can anyone relate?

Sorry, I certainly can't. Actually, this is the kind of memory I like to think that if I had one I would be much better off... Perhaps a savant, an Einstein . But, there is a chance that I would have paid the price by trading in some of my current abilities, so eventually I don't know.

My long time memory is not so bad though, maybe it just depends too much on a trigger to make it recall old memories.

My memory, I have come to realize, is very dependent on what is going on around me.

In ideal circumstances, where I am highly interested in the subject, I can recall very easily, without effort really.

But more often, when I am distracted by things or feeling panicked, my ability to recall is much lower.

Also, I tend to remember words and emotions much better than images.

The type of memory you're talking about sounds more like a savant skill where a person can remember a narrow range of information in great detail. I think that photographic memory is more visual, like you say.

I have a good memory for objects around the house. I can always tell when something has been moved. I'm hopeless with names, faces, and general information though.

I have random memory. Somethimes i remember things visually, somethimes from synesthesia, other times verbally. So my memory isn't good (to school i could read a text and do not remember any words, teacher sayd i didn't payed attention, for classmates i simply didn't understood texts. But i remember very well things that are happened a lot of time ago (especially before my 3 years old)

I don't get it - somewhere it said that Aspies need to write out shopping lists (which I suppose some hidden words are ''and NTs don't need to write out shopping lists''). If writing shopping lists was what NTs do aswell, then it wouldn't be an Aspie thing. It would either be a normal human thing, or an NT trait what we share. If Aspies are supposed to have a good memory, then why do we need to write out shopping lists? If NTs have bad memory, and writing out shopping lists was an Aspie thing, then how do NTs remember all of their shopping when they have a bad memory?

If the things on the grocery list are related to your special interest, you could probably remember every one of them without writing it down. However, if it's a bunch of dull stuff you're not interested in buying but ought to get anyway, it's much harder to recall.

Yeah. I can remember my houses very well and the stuff we had but I have forgotten some things we owned and some toys we had. I can remember where all my classrooms were located and where we had all our trees over the years and I can remember what I got for Christmas. But of course I don't remember every single thing I got. I don't think my memory works the same way as yours but I can still relate in ways. I even still remember which Burger King it was that were out of food dad, my brothers and I went to and all we got was a drink and I got upset because we didn't get our food and my dad said they were all out of hamburgers and fries. So we didn't get our Mighty Kids Meals. I even remember picturing the last person who was there was a mother who went through the drive through with her little boy and they got the last food and he got the last toy and the restaurant was now out of them. Now as an adult I realize the shipment may have been delayed and it may have been the end of the month and the shipment got delayed so they ran out of stuff and the drink we got was probably free because they were so sorry they were out. But as a child I didn't know that and I never wanted to eat at that Burger King again. So for a while every time we go to that burger King, I always thought it was a different one because they had what we wanted despite that I knew it was the same location but I thought it was a different Burger King still and wondered what happened to the old one. Then as I got older I realized it was the same Burger King. But yet I cannot remember what place we dropped our mother off at and dad decided to take us to Burger King as we waited for her.

But yet I remember my stroller, my car seat, my high chair, play pen, my toys, the mall we always went to and the school my parents always brought me to to play on the slide there, I also remember my diapers. I remember my baby sitter and remember her taking a pair of my mom's earring and putting them on. But I never knew she stole things from us until I was 12 when mom used that story as an example for me about something. I can remember her taking me to a Burger King with her friends one time but I don't remember which one. I have lot of random memories from when I was two years old. Mom doesn't believe I can remember that young so she goes I remember because of the videos I saw dad took. Then in 2004, she tells me a story she can remember about when she went to Niagara Falls and she remembered how miserable she felt and how she got scared and how her dad got mad at her and she had all these details she remembered, boots being too big and the coat and hat, how hard it was to move in them and see because of the hat, how she thought this one guy was her dad so she hung onto him and his wife goes "Oh isn't that cute" and she looked up and saw it wasn't her dad so she cried and her father heard her and yelled "Mouse, get over here" and she was two years old.

My dad is even surprised I remember his red business car he drove for work and me riding in there. I was a baby then when he had it.

Joe90, I think doctors sometimes throw out behavior lot of people do and make it be aspie behavior when NTs do it too. That's why I don't take everything seriously anymore what I read about AS. Things I have seen discussed on here I have seen the same at Babycenter. They are annoyed at the same things members here are also annoyed with, "No offense but..." for example and people who pronounce words wrong. Another funny thing is I have seen women over there rant about their husbands and those were the same kind of rants I have read at AS Partners so that tells me, it's a jerk thing just as I've thought. But those women there just blame it on AS maybe because they need to use the label as a scrap goat so they can cope with their behavior better? Lot of people love to blame things on conditions. "Oh it must be her time of the month" "Oh just pregnancy hormones" "Oh she is just being a woman" "Oh that is just the PMS" and people do the same thing with other conditions too such as AS.

Hi. The words 'eidetic', 'episodic', and 'echoic' are some words that can be googled in relation to memory. ...Plus, it's often a trait of Aspies to experience high(er) long-term memory ability/recall. Unfortunately, it's the short-term memory that kicks us in the seat every so often.

Thoughts re shopping lists: Aspies would tend to be more methodical about something like food shopping - especially if they're tracking something such as expenses, percentage of fatty-foods to low-carbs, how much they'll be able to fit into the alloted space (i.e. car's trunk or cabinet back at home). Plus, a list is a form of an agenda: it very much aids in keeping an Aspie shopper on 'target'. Grocery stores (these days) are most often VERY large, have MANY people milling around in them, and have ENORMOUS product choices (besides being noisy). Of course, Aspies need a little assistance (in the form of a shopping list) to help them with the dozens of re-orientings they must do under such circumstances.

NT's are usually less methodical about almost everything...A possible 'opposite' of methodical would be 'spontaneous'. I often see NT's just ripping through aisles and choices...sure that they can shrug off any 'errors' (i.e. wrong brand, unwanted style of chips, overly hot salsa, etc.) discovered after purchase. They are less likely to care if there's 'overflow' of groceries they've brought home - storing items directly on countertops doesn't distress them as it would many Aspies. I think NT's 'suffer' some from their shopping 'style' (being spontaneous can lead to many errors - some of them repeated again and again) ... we just don't see the negative 'after-results'.

I can remember exact dialogue from years ago, and dialogue from movies etc.

I pick up information about my special interest very quickly - but I think that's the same with everyone.

My memory is terrible, seriously bad. I think I might have some sort of other problem, because I also can't remember more than three pieces of information at once.

My visual/spatial memory is the best, followed by my conceptual/numerical memory. Both are definitely above that of the average person, but my verbal memory is about equal, if not below average. It seems as if I lack any sort of short term verbal memory, but my long term verbal memory is alright.

Well I.... - what was the question again??

I might be of some help here. I do write things out, but then I never look at what I write. Once I take the time to write it and view it once, it's engrained in my memory.

I used to think I was a kinesthetic learner because of this, the actual writing with my hands and such. I learned last semester that it's a visual learner trait. Not the map/spacial visual, but the fact that I view my writing and don't forget it. I remember letters in that case.

Apparently, people on the Spectrum are predominantly visual learners. I don't have a source for this, it just came up in one of my classes, and an Aspie classmate who was beyond brilliant mentioned it. Even Mozart had synesthesia, so he saw different colors when he played different notes.

If it's something I'm interested in, I can spend hours telling you all sorts of useless facts I know about the subject, even stuff I read years ago. If it's something I'm not interested in, I'm hopeless. I forget my birthday and my middle name on a regular basis. It's boring information to me.

That's exactly what I was... uh... er... *sigh* I forgot.

My memory is awful.
I mean, I can train myself to memorize things. I was good at doing that in school.
Unassociated dry facts I can do quite well... world capitals, scientific laws, botanical taxonomy, and the like.

But remembering relevant, social information I am terrible at.
Certain things just seem to fade from my memory even if I know they are really important. So... birthdays, family events, conversations, relationships, shared experiences, polite conventions, sequences of interactions, the preferences of others... I very often get them mixed up, create false accounts of them, or forget about them completely.

I've already eliminated any other potential causes of this... alcohol use, lack of sleep, etc.
I don't really understand why my social memory is so bad.
Not sure if this AS-related or just my particular brain. hmm....