do autistic people remember their early childhood?

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how far does your memory go?
my memory is like most people 22%  22%  [ 13 ]
i remember earlier than most people would 78%  78%  [ 45 ]
Total votes : 58

FishStickNick
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20 Mar 2014, 1:40 am

I read something on this topic a few months ago, actually:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/asp ... and-autism

I am always startled by how little my siblings remember of their early childhood, especially since I can remember all sorts of things back to age 2 or so. I remember the lime green Volvo station wagon and its brown-and-tan interior, for example. My parents traded that car in a couple months before my third birthday.



Marybird
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20 Mar 2014, 2:21 am

FishStickNick wrote:
I read something on this topic a few months ago, actually:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/asp ... and-autism

I am always startled by how little my siblings remember of their early childhood, especially since I can remember all sorts of things back to age 2 or so. I remember the lime green Volvo station wagon and its brown-and-tan interior, for example. My parents traded that car in a couple months before my third birthday.

this is an excerpt from the link you posted.
Quote:
Why are early memories so sparse among neurotypical individuals? Dr. Clark speculates: “One possible explanation of the sparsity of early recollections is that they are purposeful for an individual, and a high number of the memories might obscure their clarity and essential focus.” In other words, the small amount of memories form a sense-making message can become the basis of our beliefs about ourselves and about life.

If that’s true, then what do my differences mean? Does the fact that I have so many memories somehow undermine my ability to make sense of my beliefs about life? Does the fact that there are so many of them mean that they are not purposeful? I’m not sure about that...

We cannot make sense of our beliefs about life because we have too many early memories? 8O
This is a lame attempt to pathologize something that we can do and they can't.