DS just amazed me - and PECS.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

He has a teeny bit of sunburn so he put his head on my lap and let me scratch his back (unheard of normally).

Then he said: 'Every time I said biscuit they put one in my hand'.

I said 'who did?'

He said 'At Opportunity Class'.

That was 3.5 years ago when ds was pretty much non-verbal. I haven't spoken to him about it since and I stopped it after too sessions for being nuts.

[lougle]

That's interesting, isn't it? I'm always amazed when DD1 suddenly comes out with something. It's never when I want her to, always when there's just a space and a 'moment'.

[AgnesDiPesto]

DS found a song on youtube, he likes acting out videos so came and found me and said "Mummy I want the carousel" because it had a carousel in the video. I'm thinking what carousel? Tell him I can't find one. He says its in the wardrobe, takes me to the wardrobe, I open it and on the top shelf there in a box are toddler elc happyland toys he has not played with for at least 2-3 years (and never showed much interest in to start with, they were inherited from his brothers and his lack of imaginative play made them pointless). In the box there is indeed a carousel! He was 3, pretty much non verbal and had zero play skills when he last saw that toy. And he remembered which cupboard I had put it in. Spooky.

[EllenJanesthickerknickers]

Ha, it's quirky DS3 who does this weird memory thing with me.

[moondog]

Interesting that he remembers that.
(I so wish there wasn't so much shoddy 'PECS' being practiced. It gives a brilliant system such a bad name.)

[StarlightMcKenzie]

It was very strange. I couldn't get any more information out of him as all of a sudden his memory didn't seem to work again (or he was just unmotivated to share more).

I think it was triggered by the fact that the baby had dropped a rich tea on the floor that he saw when he had his head down.

What is surprising to me is that I did Child Development and the research seems to suggest that memories start pretty much from when you are able to verbalise to make sense and then rehearse. Does this mean he was verbal in his head before he was speaking?

Or is it just some wierd ASD thing?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

[claw2]

Ds has a terrible memory for peoples names, he can never remember the name of my two nephews (much older than him 26 and 28 years old)

I took ds to the hairdressers a few days ago and the hairdresser was asking him questions about whether he had brothers and sisters etc (he gets very confused with how people are related to each other). He was trying to name one of my nephews as his brother, but couldnt remember his name. I had no idea what he was talking about, then he described an incident of one of them spilling his drink in my sisters garden, which happened 4 years ago and said "you know that one"

He has never been able to remember their names, but he remembers that one of them spilled his drink!

[AgnesDiPesto]

I agree zzzz I think what I find amazing is his memory from when he was 2 or 3 is so clear, yet most of us NTs cannot remember anything much before age 4-5

[saintlyjimjams]

Weird ASD thing. When ds1 was about 9 or 10 we discovered via google maps that he remembers loads of places from when he was 2 (places he has never been since - we moved 300 miles when he was 2, last saw over a decade ago, places he's been once). He's still non-verbal now. I said to him 'show me x's house', straight there on google maps 'who's X' says ds2

[claw2]

Ds has just amazed me again today with his memory. I asked him to write a shopping list of things that just he wanted from shopping.

List had about 10 items on it, but they were in order of which item we would pass first in the different aisles. Ds hasnt been in the supermarket in ages and he has rarely come with me.

Yet he remembered that veggies and fruit come first, then bread, etc, etc.

[mymatemax]

as my Dad always says about ds2, "It s all in there somewhere!"

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Aw, love these stories.

I'm glad ds remembers. But I worry that he is remembering the times when I was getting things very wrong .

[FreshWest]

I'm quite convinced that dd who is 5 and non verbal is quietly storing things away. She already has a good memory and will remember places she hasn't been for ages (in that she seems to recognise where she is iyswim)
She changed to a ss when she was barely 4 and I often wonder whether she will remember the ms place when she is older and able to verbalise.

[claw2]

Star, Im sure your 'getting things wrong' isnt even that 'wrong'!

[StarlightMcKenzie]

No Claw. I have got it wrong. There was a time when I fell apart badly and ds didn't do well out of it. I was stressed out to the max with how I was being treated and how he was being failed. The lies, the deceit, the people who laughed in my face at the very idea of early intervention. DS was incredibly difficult to handly and I was unsupported. He was yet again leaning and banging on me (I had bruises) as he did which used to infuriate me even when I was calm (I'm tactile defensive). I snapped. I will never get over it. DS wasn't even 2.

[raffle]

We took DS to Wimpy ages ago when he was around 2 and a half and was non-verbal. He had an ice cream (ha! No way would he eat that now!) and it was all over him, face covered and top soaking wet. He looked so sweet we took a photo. We then had to dive into Primark and buy him a new top, as forgot to take out a spare.

Today (2 years later), he looked at the photo and said "oh no, all wet, take it off, new one on"

:)

[claw2]

Star, ok you got it wrong, you are only human. You are what makes your ds what he is today.

[MareeyaDolores]

Memory is complex. Depends on too many factors.

DS seeing a certain brand of rich tea, which triggers a flash of memory of some weird woman's speech-biscuit fetish 4 years ago is interesting. But it doesn't necessarily mean he's bothered to lay down such detailed records of every maternal error.

Emotional memory, auditory memory, visual memory, logical memory... they might be inextricably linked for you now, but I'd bet large sums that an autistic 2y old would not have laid down the sort of memories which you're imagining. Given the probable delayed development in facial-expression processing, it's not impossible that he totally failed to register your extreme maternal distress, and just has some neutral 'mum's-acting-a-bit-odd,-hmm,-rather-a-puzzle' memories

[MareeyaDolores]

infant memory theory