Expert: Trey McGowan - 7/23/2007

Question
My grandson has been diagnosed as autistic but he is very high functioning.  He is 4 years old now and has made great strides recently with hyperberic chambers and kelation treatments.  But my question is not really about the autism.  Anthony has tremendous recall.  For instance, if he watches a movie (he loves movies) just once - we will find him writing things like this on the chalkboard the next day-Pixair-Miramax-Burl Ives-101 dalmations along with the names of the dogs (one name is about 14 letters long.  He can recall the dialogue verbatim.  His writing and spelling skills seem to be off the charts but so far (because everyone is concentrating on the autism) no one is saying much about this.  His biggest drawback is his social skills. By the way he is a whiz with the computer and puzzles and has known his alphabet and colors for years. You can give him ANY word to spell including names and he rarely makes a mistake.  Should we be looking at a possible form of giftedness?

Answer
Hello, Gloria!

What you are seeing here is something that autistics are extremely good at: rote memorization and recall. It isn't universal, but it is very common among the autistic spectrum, and seen quite often. You'll especially notice it with their obsessions, focusing on a certain idea and learning and memorizing everything about it that they can. However, as you've noticed with your own boy, that eidetic memory can focus on a lot of other things, as well! Essentially, the things that can be seen with the eyes or other senses are the ones most easily remembered, as the mind can take a 'picture' of it.

What this means to you is that he definitely has a gift for memorization. I'm not exactly certain if this is what you're asking for when you say 'giftedness', though. If you are hoping that every single bit of schoolwork will be off the charts, be careful! He may very well be able to spit the facts out that he has heard on paper, but make certain that he is doing the same with facts that he has to put together. I'm not sure what puzzles he's doing to be able to say for sure one way or the other what it sounds like. A jigsaw puzzle, for instance, can be rote-memorized. A Sudoku, on the other hand, can't be.

Not to say that hyper-memorization *isn't* a gift. Imagine where we would be if we didn't have the people who could memorize books and give the information to others? We wouldn't have effective lawyers, tax men, computer specialists, tech support, pharmacists, and so on and so forth. It *is* a gift. And one that, if he can combine that with his life's goals, can get him far.

Hoping that answered your question,

Trey