Used to have a photographic memory as a child. Not anymore.

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I've been reading about people with ASD having a good long-term memory. One of the things that made me doubt being on the spectrum was that my long-term memory is about average.

But today I asked my mom about about my studying habits. Turns out until around the age of 14 I had a photographic memory (or close to one). She said I would memorize lessons very quickly, and that I could watch TV, listen to a conversation, and study, all at once, and repeat everything later word for word. I also remember being able to remember 15 digit numbers after a single read for many days. I don't remember having early memories though.

But around the age of 14, the same time I started going out with friends and having a social life, my memory deteriorated. Right now my long-term memory is average.

Is this normal? Has this happened to anyone else?
And if I really did have this ability, could I get it back? (kind of far fetched, I know, but worth a try).

I think it might just need developing.

Puberty happened!
Also your memory and health in general is impacted by what goes on in your life.
If you are suffering from depression and lack of sleep, you will take a hit.
Medication will screw with it as well.

Or you could just need better nutrition and/or are a heavy drinker.

Zinc is a key mineral to developing the memory... The food that has the most Zinc naturally is CHOCOLATE!!
The above line is indeed true!

Also try doing memory exercises such as puzzles, crosswords, word searches, sudoko (the Japanese number puzzle) and others.

I just gave you a license to eat chocolate, so enjoy

Similar to my own experience Stormtrooper.

When I was young, I would memorise faces. I remember telling people "I'm not good with names, but I never forget a face".

Now days I don't recognise my own work colleague if they wear a different coloured shirt.

My memory is very good up until it hits 10 years. By the time a memory is 15 years old, it's nothing but a shadow. I have few memories older than 15 years, just glimpses of images and impressions.

Huh, I have VERY strong long-term memory. It's pretty damn crazy how strong it is. Often though it takes a little thing that "triggers" it and I get all these flashbacks of all the memories I have. I have a storage of all my memories and I can remember even the little details.

My memory is also not what it used to be. My long-term memory is similar to what hansgrohe describes but there came a point after which things just didn't get assimilated in the same way. Stress and distraction seem to be the cause.

I have the same experience. I used to be overly detailed when I was around 10-, and struggling to retain that it until I was 16, which when it give out. But now, not so much as before and hoping I'll retain it again.

Having a crappier mind performance and memory during/after puberty isn't just ASD stuff. NTs gets terrible around middle-school or so. Or at least somewhere when puberty started or occurred where children starts getting their hormones acting up.

Both has the stress and pressure. Aspies only have it much worse.

And the chocolate works. I do that almost every time I go to school for the last 3 years now.

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To add to the list....

I remember a phase of my life when I changed my diet a bunch and I remember thinking, "I feel like I'm forgetting things sometimes", however I never really put the two together. Finally about 5 years ago I made the connection: granola (bars or just a big bag to munch from) as a snack and some sort of fish (sushi or tuna-salad for me) at least a few times every week. I can't explain why, but those two seem to be key. It's totally possible that both are "nostalgia foods" for me (ate both as a kid) and they just calm me down, which reduces stress and helps memory. Or there's something more to both, like Omega fatty acids and such (I'm sure my coworkers in the nutritional supplements field would agree).

I have good long term memory. I don't remember everything but stuffs I remember often surprise myself - I can write an essay about topic I just once read about a few months ago, I can draw a map of building I was in when I was 14 and I can clearly recall situation when I was sitting in front of balcony door, looking at the falling snow outside when I was like 4. I also surprise my whole family by singing songs out of memory and they can't believe I am actually hearing the songs (lyrics, melody and music) in my memory because apparently their memory doesn't work this way.

My memories are almost as real as reality (but of course I recognize what is just playing in my memory and what is real). I can be in my room but see another room in front of my eyes just by remembering about the other room. My environment may be totally silent but I can hear sounds I heard a long time ago just by remembering a situation where sound was important. I can also feel touch/temperature/humidity/emotion I was feeling in the past just by thinking about it. Apparently I have a "replay" option in my brain.

But I can't really choose what I remember at a moment. Some things I can remember clearly like a real experience if I want, others are blurred and others I can't remember at all. Also sometimes I can't remember a situation at a moment but I will remember it later once I met a trigger that makes me remember. For example I will see a black umbrella and it will flood me with flashbacks of the black umbrella I had when I was 15 and the situations about playing with it by repeatably opening it and closing due to really fun opening mechanism.

Unfortunately my memory doesn't apply to people - I remember places, situations, sounds, items etc. but I can't remember people.
For example I can visit someone house and after years I still remember all rooms and connection between them as well as furniture but I won't recall who was living there... I will eventually remember stuffs like "2 adults and a boy" but not names or faces.

Some people just have better memories than others. That's not to say that photographic memories (which are actually called eidetic memories or eidetic imagery by professionals) don't exist, but they're extremely rare. Most people who claim to have them likely don't. Instead, they probably just have a better than average iconic memory - it's what allows us to look at something and then still be able to visualize it seconds later. For most people, it's very short, however. In reality, someone with hyperthymesia (which has been hypothesized to be caused by OCD) is more likely to have a "photographic memory" in the popular culture sense.

But yeah, researchers (Neath & Surprenant, 2003) concluded that in actuality, only about 8% of pre-adolescent children had eidetic memories, and virtually no adults had them. There really aren't any theories as to why this ability fades, but if you've been through puberty, then you're not likely to actually have an eidetic memory.

And when it comes to those of us who are autistic, we do seem to have really great memories for facts relating to our interests. So it doesn't exactly sound uncommon for an autistic child to be able to hear something and repeat it. Personally, I use to repeat verbatim shows that I'd watched. My mother always claimed we all had "photographic memories", but eh. Even after dealing with health issues causing severe fatigue, my memory still seems to be better than a lot of people's. Memorizing schoolwork doesn't really go along with an eidetic memory, either; it's a lot more than that. It really just seems that intelligent people have the ability to read something once and that's all it takes for them - no studying necessary. This seems to be very common and also seems to be a reason why some smart people make it all the way to college until having to actually learn to study and drill things into long term memory.

If you'd like to better your long memory, I agree with the other suggestions - just do brain puzzles and really focus on getting that material stored in there, because short-term memory has a pretty small storage capacity. Though it was originally estimated by George Mliler to be able to hold 5-9 items ("seven plus or minus two"), modern researchers say that its real estimate is more likely to be around 3-5 items. To make up for this limitation, you should use things like rehearsal (like repeating something to remember it) and chunking (taking information and associating them on the basis of something else, such as similarity). For brain puzzles though, I personally recommend Lumosity, because it's based on neuroscience.

To calm your concerns though, I agree with SilverProteus about your problem being more with working memory (which is has a relationship with short term memory) rather than long term memory. There are also plenty of things that can cause someone to forget something mid-sentence, so I don't think you should be worried about dementia. (Of course if it's really a big concern for you, why not get it checked out?) Actually, someone else posted a thread on it. It seems to have many causes including, but not limited to, AD(H)D, medications, depression, puberty or other hormonal changes, etc..

@Kiriae, just curious, but have you ever taken the MBTI? Your experience with memories seems to associate them with senses, so I would think you're a Sensor.