Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school eidetic memory?

This is my first posting on this forum.

My three and half year old son loves to play with different kinds of puzzles and maps. He is also an early reader.

A month ago, I had bought him five sets of different world continental map puzzle with three hundred some pcs in total. The puzzle pieces are shaped like individual countries. Being able to Read every country name, he had completed each puzzle without any help.

About two weeks after, he did the same thing again, but this time he used only the back side of each puzzle without looking at front side. There is nothing on the backside except different shape.

It seemed that he memorizes the shape and location of each country and also he understands the concept of opposite direction of mirror image.

Is this a type of eidetic memory?

Please share the story about your gifted kids' special memory skill.

It may or may not be eidetic memory, but it certainly is a skill level far beyond what is typically expected at this age. I recommend you start an account at http://www.talentigniter.com/milestonetracker
to help you recall the various milestones as they occur and get an idea of how far ahead of the curve he really is. Also try and collect some family histories of other family members who did things unusually early and how life has turned out for them in areas like school, social interactions and work.

Welcome and great to have you here. You belong.
Grinity

My son is also 3 1/2. I've also wondered whether he has a eidetic memory, but I don't think he does. Nevertheless, his memory is very good. He began reading shortly after 2 and I think he's now reading at a grade 3/4 level. He reads by sight, it seems. Once he's learned a word, he never has to sound it out again. He's also very into world geography. Before he could read, he learned many countries by shape. Now that he can read, he knows them by shape and by identifying their names. However, I do not think he could do a puzzle like you describe above. That sounds very impressive.

Welcome to the forum! I've found it very helpful and reassuring to hear other people's stories.

Hi, Myfav. Those GeoPuzzles are great, aren't they?

Doing jigsaw puzzles from the backs of the pieces is not extremely uncommon in my experience, but not average behavior either. Neither of my children has decided on their own to do puzzles with the pieces flipped, but neither of them showed a very great interest in jigsaws either compared to other types of puzzles and models.

The behavior you describe might be a manifestation of a photographic memory if your son instantly grabbed each piece, regardless of orientation, and placed it correctly, thus doing the puzzle quickly and without any problem-solving. On the other hand, actually working (problem-solving) a jigsaw with country-shaped pieces this way would be easier than a jigsaw with regularly shaped pieces. And even for someone with an ordinary memory who has begun learning geography, the shapes of many of the countries will be distinctive and memorable early on.

Thus I think that unless you've seen other evidence of an eidetic memory (reciting any text verbatim after a single hearing or reading, etc.), it's not likely a sign of such a memory, which after all is very rare. Instead it's more likely to show some combination of above-average memory combined with good visual-spatial skills.

Both of my children seem to have memory more like mine-- they can remember the meaning or effect of large amounts of things, but tend not to remember words from stories, etc. verbatim.

My DS13 was doing similar things at just over 2 years of age. He could take a 40 piece puzzle of the USA and do it very quickly. So, I thought it would challenge him if I flipped all of the pieces face down and mixed them up. To my astonishment he picked up the pieces in the facedown position and moved them to the correct position and then flipped them over and put them in place. That, I could not believe. I also can't believe I haven't been able to find the video of it.

Mr W can hear a song once and sing it perfectly many days later. He can also navigate anything he walks perfectly many days later - ie remember where something is on a shelf in a store. These are just two examples.

Ohhh... my DD9 used to do that when she was little! I'd forgotten about that. Wow. I can't recall how old she was - maybe 3 or 4. She was reading at 3 like your son.

At the time I just assumed she was fitting the shapes together and that it would have been easier without the distracting element of the picture on the puzzle. Any puzzle she came across, regardless of piece shape or size, she delighted in re-assembling from the back side.

She doesn't seem to have an eidetic memory now (unless she hides it - but I doubt it). Who knows with your son though. Maybe he does? I wish I knew more about it. Good luck in finding out