Does a really bad memory have anything to do with aspergers?

Post Reply New Topic

I have good long term memory and awful short term memory.

This.

I usually just leave the keys in the car so I don't have to dig through my pockets for when I get back to the car. Besides, if it is cold out, I can leave the engine running when I run into the grocery store, the bank, the post office, city hall, or anything else in town.

As for the house, I don't even have a key to it. It seems pointless to carry a key when I've never locked the door.

My memory is terrible. Especially the short-term kind. Makes many important aspects of daily living a lot harder than it ought to be. Like if I have to read and memorize more than a page or two of text, no way would I be able to recall and describe (in a way you'd understand) the main message or summarize major plot points. It's kind of like getting to the tense final moments in The Hunger Games, and you're really anxious to read how Katniss will survive her current predicament. That's when you realize you cannot remember for the life of you how or why Katniss is frantically headshotting zombies with arrows. You wonder how there's suddenly infinite arrows for a bow she didn't seem to use, how the other kids died, so all you understand is Katniss just walking to an arena to kill stuff. But you're so pumped up about Katniss finally killing the "final guy", so the book ends up being good no matter what happened during those middle 300 or so pages that make up the actual story. Also, any math that concerns more than two or three numbers, I'll remember the last couple numbers in a sequence but nothing else.

Poor short term memory but good long term memory is common with AS.

From what I read in many websites about AS it seems that poor short term memory is not one of the symptoms of AS. I think I have better short- and long-term memory than average.

It's not a symptom, but it's common.

I have a terrible memory also... Especially when it relates to people-related things or emotions...

According to Tony Attwood (The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome, p. 234), people with AS usually have impaired executive function, which includes working memory ("the ability to maintain or hold information ‘on line’ when solving a problem").

yes... my working memory is terrible... I have to write things down and see them to process them most times

I actually wrote an essay about the memory profile in ASDs (as part of my psychology degree). From what I could gather both episodic and working memory deficits are fairly common in autism. Episodic memory being memory for past events, and working memory being memory for information currently in use. If anyone is interested I'd be happy to upload the essay, I found it quite interesting to research as up until then I had no idea that episodic memory could be linked to ASDs (my episodic memory is terrible).

I would read it

You should be able to access it here. It's probably not the most entertaining read but it does reference quite a few papers if anyone wants to look into it further (of course accessing the papers could be quite difficult for anyone not in university/college). I should mention that I'm not an expert in autism by any means, and whilst I tried to make sure the information was correct it is still possible that there are some errors. We were just allowed to write any paper we wanted as long as it involved memory research, and I though autism could be an interesting choice.

As others have said, I have excellent long term memory but awful short term memory. I'm famous for making a cup of tea or coffee then forgetting about it until hours later when it's gone cold. I always assumed this was unrelated to AS because I never saw it mentioned in any of the many lists of "signs and symptoms." Recently I thought it had to do with my handedness; apparently left-handers, ambidextrous, and semi-ambidextrous (like me) people tend to have poor short-term memory. But now I'm re-thinking that based on this thread and other related anecdotes from aspies. Maybe it should be included as one of the signs of asperger syndrome.

I would like to read the paper. The aspies that I know with good episodic memmories are visual thinkers. I am a visual thinker but I do not have a detailed photographic memmory like some. If I can't visualize it, I will not understand it, nor will I have any chance of remembering it.

I do not have a strong working memmory either. I have to compensate for this by writing things down or I have to have it explained to me a few times so that I can create a strong mental image.