Hyperlexia and ASD?

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I'm definitely someone who would fall into the hyperlexic category.

I learned to speak very early, and I learned to read as a toddler. By the time I was in third grade I had already read the Hobbit several times and had moved on to the Lord of the Rings. I was always assessed as reading at "college" level (though some of my collegiate peers certainly don't) and as a child I was constantly applauded for my writing. I'm still a pretty good writer. I can whip up an A-grade essay in an hour if I don't need to do any research, three hours if I do. I'm even better with fiction, and my specialty is horror.

However, I notice that my skills with language do not carry over into the verbal arena. I'm definitely quite verbal, but I struggle with mundane things such as grammar and syntax ("he and I" not "me and him"). It's almost impossible for me to express a complex, abstract idea in words, but I have no problem doing so with text. I stumble over my words some times, and I always have such a hard time getting anyone to understand what I mean that I think I must not explain myself well. It's incredibly frustrating. I can't imagine what it would be like to take that a step further to being non-verbal.

All children are different anyway, NT or not. They all learn to read at different ages. They don't all learn to read at something like exactly 6 years 10 weeks 4 days and 1 hour, and if not then they must be rushed to the doctors for an Autistic diagnosis. My mum is NT, and she said she first learnt to read at 4, no kidding. I was actually rather delayed with reading.

You know, sometimes I wonder if I ever had hyperlexia...

I was able to read books to people when I was only 2 years old and my mother thought I was some kind of genius until she realized that I could only read certain books and not others because I memorized the books that people read to me and I was good at memorizing. Even so, I was still very good at reading when I six, but I would often hate reading because I was expected to know what the book was about.

I usually had trouble with reading comprehension, especially when I got into middle school and I was introduced to more abstract concepts. I really hate being pressured to be an expert on the book that I'm reading. I just wanted to read! I'm do get better as the years go by, but sometimes I feel like I am missing the mark.

I'm not sure I have the medical definition of hyperlexia, because I picked up speech very easily and quickly. I learned to read on my own at 18 months old.

Last edited by -Skeksis- on 05 Dec 2011, 7:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I have bad Dyslexia & AS. I WISH I was Hyperlexic

I caught on to reading right about second grade. By third grade I was about 4 grade levels ahead, comprehension and all. My son was also slow to catch on but when it did he loved reading. Still doesn't test as well as his actual ability.

I don't know if it's Hyperlexic or Dyslexic, but I shuffle the words in a sentence. The individual characters remain as they should, and I have no trouble with numbers. I have a hard time with the standard left-right scanning, my eye goes all around the page while I notice the visual patterns the text makes.

I don't enjoy reading at all. But in school I always tested at a higher level than my peers.
I have a good vocabulary & comprehension.

I'm not sure what is going on with me, I just know that verbal things are a pain in the butt.
I relate to the world on a visual level, not verbal.

Everyone thought that the fact I taught myself to read at 3yrs was great. My mum was even advised to get me into school. So I started a year early, at 3yrs (my mum found a small private school that took kids from a young age) and read from broadsheet newspapers in class, each morning. I started school with the reading age of a child leaving primary school.

But, believe it or not, I have severe trouble with reading. This sort of scenario is quite common with hyperlexia. I've only read about 10 novels in my entire life and those were ones that captivated my imagination from page 1. Usually, I get to the end of the first page and say to myself, 'What have I just read?' I've normally been thinking about something completely unrelated to the book. I've never been able to study and have relied solely on memory to get any qualifications that I have. I dreaded being asked to read something, within a specific timescale, and always managed to baffle my teachers with how rubbish I was at this, whilst breezing through everything else.

Learning to read at a more 'normal' age is probably the best way to be. I'm glad my daughter is 6yrs and just starting to get to grips with reading fluently. She loves books too, something I can't say has ever been true for me.

I liked reading some when I was in Jr high & my reading level & comprehension was above average for my grade; however my reading speed was very slow & I got things like names, dates, terms, order, exact wording, & other exact details confused or wrong. I'm an auditory learner & never learned by studying. The reason I sometimes got Cs on my English report card was because I Aced the test about the novels & things we had to read unless there were discussion questions. I barely passed the writing, grammar & spelling parts & reports & I struggled in math(especially the non practical stuff like Alebra1) & I struggled in lots of other classes too.

If this is accurate, I don't think that I am.

Hyperlexia Symptoms
The severity, frequency, and grouping of the following symptoms will determine an actual diagnosis

• A precocious ability to read words far above what would be expected at a child’s age
• Child may appear gifted in some areas and extremely deficient in others
• Significant difficulty in understanding verbal language
• Difficulty in socializing and interacting appropriately with people
• Abnormal and awkward social skills
• Specific or unusual fears
• Fixation with letters or numbers ...I don't have this one!...
• Echolalia (Repetition or echoing of a word or phrase just spoken by another person)
• Memorization of sentence structures without understanding the meaning ...This one!...
• An intense need to keep routines, difficulty with transitions, ritualistic behavior

Additional Symptoms:
• Normal development until 18-24 months, then regression ...This one!...
• Listens selectively / appears to be deaf
• Strong auditory and visual memory
• Self-stimulatory behavior (hand flapping, rocking, jumping up and down)
• Think in concrete and literal terms, difficulty with abstract concepts
• Auditory, olfactory and / or tactile sensitivity
• Difficulty answering "Wh–" questions, such as "what," "where," "who," and "why" ...Or this one!...

since hearing about hyperlexia it has occurred to me that that is not the same thing as being a born storyteller (i. e. author) & perhaps the latter does not even fit me. i would be just as happy endlessly rearranging alphabet blocks, as writing books which no one reads.

Very interesting, I wonder if I might have this. I amazed my parents when I taught myself to read as a small child, age two or three. As an adult I can sit down, read a dozen pages out of a book, and have absolutely no idea what I just read as they were merely words on a page. I'll process the words at a basic level but my mind will be elsewhere entirely.

I don't know if I have an ASD, same for hyperlexia. I am a self taught reader, I started reading at four and had what were considered "exceptional reading skills" (now people just complain because I read too fast, lol) after I was sent from kindergarten to primary school at five because I got bored. I was able to read "The Lord Of The Rings" in 5th grade, novels in English in 8th grade - English is not my native language. I started speaking at 6 months. I don't have big problems with speaking, except I do find it much much easier to express myself in writing and my social skills are very bad. When I get in the mood I can start talking quite a lot, though. Also, I'm ok at comprehension.

I'd always been good at reading, but when I was 7, I started to read every book I could find. I used to be a complete bookworm. When I was 9, the teachers at school would ask me how I was able to read 1984 by George Orwell. I just told them it was a good book and I liked it. My english teacher thought I was trying to show off, and that I actually didn't understand any of it. So, she made me read it word for word. I did just that, and got all of the words correct. She was gobsmacked by this, and sent me for a professional test that found my reading age was 16+, which was the highest score you could get.
I don't really read all that much today (I got lazy) however I understand nearly every word I find, and sometimes I don't even know why I know it's meaning.

My mum said to me today that we were always in the library when I was very young as it was free. My Headmaster at the time was amazed at my reading ability, probably due to my lousy handwriting (Dyspraxia). I can't remember that far back, but asked her after seeing this thread.

I was an early reader but my reading comprehension skills are rather subpar. I've also read some people with ASD experience dyslexic traits. Not everyone with ASD is hyperlexic.