Autism and Early Memories

After finishing my last post about Autism, I remembered something else interesting on the topic that I had read about recently. This relates back to what we learned about memory and development. As we all probably know, when people get older, they find it hard to recall things that happened to them when they were very young. (Very young children's memories may not even function the same way as an older persons'!) This seems to be a normal part of development, doesn't it? Well, this doesn't appear to be the case for some people with Autism. Apparently, many people on the Autistic spectrum have very vivid memories of things which occurred when they were very young- even age 1! Some can even identify exactly the age they were when a memory took place. Some people have doubts about this, and say that this only happens because people take the stories other people tell about them and reconstruct them, so it is only their memory playing tricks on them. However, many different people have told over early memories and correctly named details of their experiences to such a degree that it seems as if they are telling the truth. Also, a number of these people recounted stories that were never told to them by anyone else. 

So how can this be? Well, one explanation is that they are simply traumatic events, which causes them to be ingrained in one's memory. However, we know this idea is true even for people who are not Autistic. Another idea is that most early memories are sensory memories, because that is often how we see things when we are very young (sensory memories being memories of how something looked, felt, tasted, smelled, or sounded.) People with Autism have a high sensitivity to sensory stimulation, and can be overwhelmed by it at times. They perceive it and react to it in ways that people without this disorder can't, and are as of yet unable to understand. So, sensory memories would make more of an impression on these individuals, and as a result these memories are retained. I found this explanation to be very interesting, and to make more sense than the other. (Memory is such a strange and wonderful thing.) What do you think these ideas? Do you have another possible explanation?