Sylvia Rimm on Raising Kids by Dr. Sylvia Rimm

Q: I have a gifted 6-year-old daughter. Recently, my daughter demonstrated that she memorizes everything she reads word-for-word, including picture captions and even the image on each page. She only needs to read a book once or twice to memorize it. She also tells me that when she calls up memorized pages, she sees the words as dots and can read them. It's truly amazing to see her look into her mind's eye and read these large books!

Also, she is constantly talking about numbers having assigned colors in her mind. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with her memory or not.

Can some people really have photographic memories? Could having a photographic memory be harmful to a child?

A: Although it's common for gifted young children to remember books word-for-word after reading them once or twice, it's very unusual to find children who actually recall and see the letters and images in visual detail. That kind of photographic memory is usually referred to eidetic memory; it's found among a small number of children and hardly ever seen in adults. While your daughter may continue to have an excellent memory as she matures, it's unlikely that the photographic nature will remain as visually distinct. At least, there are few, if any, adults that maintain that exact visual nature of their memory during adulthood.

There are some adults who have excellent memories and can recall the place on the page the material was written, but the photographic detailed nature of the memory seems to disappear. I have never heard of harm being done to a child with a photographic memory. I can imagine that as your daughter enters school and is expected to write down assignments or take notes to enhance her memory, that she could easily be resident to note taking.

She might feel notes are unnecessary, and she could thus get into some bad habits.

I doubt if assigning colors to numbers is related to her photographic memory, but it is more likely a learning game that's become fun and is unlikely to do any harm. Perhaps, she's making a game up to keep things interesting. On the other hand, if certain numbers take on color for her and not for most of us, I'm not sure we can count her as mistaken.

Your daughter seems to have unusual abilities, and I would strongly recommend that you take her to a school or private psychologist who specializes in gifted children for IQ and achievement testing. You may be in for some surprises, and you'll want to be sure she's placed in an appropriate academic setting that matches her unusual abilities.

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Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or srimm@sylviarimm.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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