Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Curious about memory in early memorizers

I found that stuff learned before about age 6 that was not retrieved (or practiced in the case of skills) frequently tended to evaporate.

DD8 could locate most countries of the world and knew many, many flags at age 2. She retained some major/easy stuff, like Australia, Russia, China, Spain, but has definitely forgotten countries like Ghana and Turkmenistan. I wonder if she retains ANY flags...probably not. I feel confident that she could easily relearn it all if she wanted to.

She started learning bird species at 18 months. These are largely retained, but the difference is that she is still very interested in birds and reads and uses field guides.

I have noticed that she still knows a lot about the planets, but I think this has been periodically reinforced at school.

Both kids picked up all the state nicknames when we were playing Scrambled States of America a lot last summer. I bet they're forgotten now.

However, DD continues to have an excellent memory of her early life. I wonder how long this will continue. Perhaps it's normal for young children? Her first memory is from about 18 months, and there are no photos of the event. She regularly amazes me by recalling events that happened before she was 3.

The brain operates on a "use it or lose it" phenomenon, so if you don't keep reviewing the flags of the world, you likely will not remember it.
However, having a strong memory is such a useful skill to have. It allows you to make connection across seemingly unrelated areas, as you remember one fact from here and another fact from there.
It can also help you overcome learning disabilities. My hearing-impaired son has been a poor speller, I assume b/c he doesn't hear the ends of words. We have done spelling flashcards, 10 a week, for 3 years, and voila! He is now an above average speller. He has an almost photographic memory.