The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome

by Anthony Attwood

We are not precisely sure why a person with Asperger’s syndrome can have exemplary long-term memory for details and facts and an ability to recall events in infancy. A plausible explanation is that people with Asperger’s syndrome have a different pattern of brain wiring from birth and weak central coherence affects the perception, cognitive processing and storing and retrieval of memories. The result is an ability to recall events in infancy that others cannot retrieve. The ability for the accurate recall of scenes can extend to remembering whole pages of a book. This eidetic or photographic memory can be extremely helpful in examinations, although I have known of university students with Asperger’s syndrome who have been falsely accused of cheating because their examination answers have included perfect and lengthy reproductions of the principal texts for the course. I have also known of boys, but rarely girls, with Asperger’s syndrome who have a remarkable memory for directions and places they have been. The young child may give accurate directions of how to get to my clinic from the back seat of the family car, to the great relief of his mother who wants to arrive on time for the appointment.