Do people on the spectrum have good memories?

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My memories are very detailed. I can remember where people and things were standing and what they said. Even if it was years ago. I have memories from when I was 2 years old, and they can be quite complex too. Often I remember the date too, I have a thing for knowing things in a chronological order.

Strangely, when I was a kid, my memory was much better than it is now, but only sometimes. Once, I lost my glasses at Wal Mart and couldn't remember where I put the case. I absentmindedly set it down somewhere. I can still remember how pissed off my mom was about it and how I prayed to God someone would find them and turn them in. Thankfully, someone did. I remember some things vividly but tend to be absent minded.,

I have a photographic memory. However, if it comes in through the ears, then not so much.

I'm just like you, OP. I remember things with my interests really well, and some random things here and there, but have a terrible memory when it comes to simple things like chores, stuff I need to do, calling places, etc. Setting up appointments, etc.

I can remember things that are interesting to me or that I care about, but I can't remember things that don't matter to me. I can remember football facts that no one would ever need to know, like who won Super Bowl XXV or who has the NFL record for most career games with a zero passer rating or who was Mr. Irrelevant in 2009, but I can't remember what people's names are or pretty much anything related to history class.

Most of my good memories from my childhood were summer vacations and holidays.....only because I didnt have to go to the torture chamber they called school. I remember spending hours in the summer with my ants....although my parents never would buy me an ant farm. I was a kid back in the days when you could run around and your parents didnt worry that youd be abducted (the 70s). I loved being alone and outside, the smells of summer, freshly mowed grass. When I was between 3 and 5 my grandparents bought us this thing called a whirly bird. It was like a four point teeter toter but instead of going up and down when you pulled with your hands and pushed with your feet on the bars the entire thing would spin around and circles. I would spend hours on that and in my sand box. When I was older we lived behind a K mart and I would climb into the dumpster and find toys that they threw away and I could stick my hand inside the gum ball machine and get free gumballs. I didnt know I was stealing at the time.
Anyway, Ill shut up now LOL!

Even though my short-term memory's shot to pieces (for instance, forgetting a set of verbal instructions, or repeating something because I forgot I'd already done it, or repeating something because I forgot I'd already done it), I can remember the most irrelevant details from years (or decades) ago. For instance, when I was in infant in the '70s, we were visiting some relatives who had a rumpus room with a bar, and French doors at one end of the room. I remember someone male (presumably one of the occupants) banging on them, yelling "Open the bar door". Presumably, someone got locked out.

Within those few years, my parents went shopping for a lawnmower, and I remember seeing three Flymos outside the shop they visited: one red, one blue, and one dark purplish-blue.

I have the not-useful-for-school version of a photographic memory. My thought process and memory both work in images, so I'll remember exactly what I was looking at, but I can't remember individual words. I've talked to a few people with photographic memories, and what they describe is exactly how my memory works, except that if they stare at a page in a book for long enough, they can go back and read it later. For me, the letters are pictures too, so I'll remember the shape of the paragraphs but not the words, at least not in legible format. I'm too zoomed out to read lol. Now, if I focus on a couple words, I can remember them, but not the whole page.

I once talked with a guy who said if he was running late in the morning, he would stare at every page in the newspaper for ~40 seconds and then remember it on the bus to work and "read" the paper from his memory. I wish I could do that...

I can tell you exactly what happened and what everyone was wearing and what we ate at my 3rd birthday party, but I can't do anything that helps me memorize things I don't care about lol.

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I have a terrible memory. I only remember bits and pieces of my life before puberty, and even after that my memory isn't tip-top.

Is it just me or do alot of people here seem to think the OP was talking about
our MEMORY FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL EVENTS/episodic memory?


IMO....that's the least important type of memory of all.

Remembering what you did on your vacation to Cedar Point when you were seven doesn't seem all that important. Remembering what you learned in Anatomy and Physiology I so you can progress to A & P II seems a bit more vital to one's overall
well-being.

Even though i've never taken A&P....that would be an example of MY memory problem. Forgetting what I did in Miss so-and-so's class in 2nd grade isn't even in the same universe in terms of order of importance.