Autism Soccer: Memory: Into the Mind of Autistic Children

They will surely remember what you had for dinner two weeks ago when you were with him.

While autism itself baffles the medical community years after it was first diagnosed, there are some elements of this condition that are even more intriguing. One of those is the fact that children with autism show an impressive ability to memorize and pick up patterns. This impressive feat has been one of the main questions that remain a mysterious fact among the nature of the condition itself. For many years, investigations have tried to elucidate why people with this condition have such a powerful memory system, and if this savant-like feature is inherent to the Autistic Spectrum.

One of the things that you need to know before diving into the sea of the autistic spectrum is that there are three of them, recognized by the criteria that children or adults meet, according to medical standards. The first one, it’s classic Autistic Spectrum (ASDs), that is a condition where there’s a severe impairment in social and communicative skills, whereas in the Asperger Syndrome, the condition leans more into the delays in cognitive development and language impairment, and finally, the Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified or (PDD-NOS), an intersecting diagnosis made when both criterias for ASDs and Asperger are not met by the patient.

The memory perception of Autistic children differs from people without the condition in the nature in which the information is processed and understood. One of the assumptions is that for the nature of the condition, they focus more on detail and less on bigger pictures, and can not actually relate emotional responses like other people tend to do when it comes to reminding facts. Children with this condition are particularly keen on keeping track of their preferred subjects, and if they are verbal, they can launch into a complex and deep explanation about subjects that are interesting for them.

One of the most interesting facts about the memory of Autistic Spectrum patients is the fact that each of them can remember things in specific ways, especially when it comes to detail. Small things are more likely to capture their attention, and can be remembered without social context, unlike the way we understand memories. The nature of their memory still baffles the medical community, and for decades they’ve been learning how their brains connect the dots of their ideas in such impressive ways. While short-term memory and social cues are often missed in their memory, the fact is that they can compress and understand complex information in such an effective manner.

The people at Autism Soccer know the unique nature of the mind of Autistic Spectrum children, and work to create a routine that will take advantage and potentiate that unique talent of these small kids. With them, they can experience love for sports, while using their memory to remember moves and keep them active to make them feel relaxed and connected. Reach out to them and see how incredible this initiative is for special needs children!