I’ve been watching the “Heart of Autism” DVD, and saw an interaction that Dr. Gutstein described as episodic memory: a mother and child were looking at pictures, and the child remembered (laughing) that someone had pretended to eat a crayon and said “mmmm!”

Now, to my eyes, that’s certainly emotional memory (he remembered what happened, and it made him laugh). But plenty of kids with autism can remember what happened and the emotions connected with the event.

My son spent YEARS perseverating on his feelings about a particular scene in a particular video. He was also able to say that he did NOT want to watch that video again because of the scary feelings he had the first time around. (In other words, he was using his emotion-laden memory to direct his future actions.) Was that episodic memory?

Now, he’s able to compare his feelings about that video (in which a character was lost in the woods) to the feelings of his sister’s friend, who had a similar fear in the real-life woods. (He’s using his emotion-laden memory to inform his real-life interactions with others.) Is THAT episodic memory? Is it a more advanced form? Or is it something else?

Does this mean that my son already HAS episodic memory? Or am I missing some key element? And.. what is the difference between ordinary memory to which emotions are attached (I tried chicken yesterday and hated it, so I spit it out) and episodic memory? If the chicken memory leads the child to say “So I never want to eat chicken again,” does that mean he’s mastered the use of emotion-laden memories to plan for the future?

Sorry if this is confusing; I think I may be missing some fine details!

Thanks so much!

Lisa Rudy