Question about hyperlexia

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Thanks.

Hmmm, reading the full text (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 7303008031) - it looks like the comprehension problems are mostly relative to reading ability and not relative to peers (except maybe at very early age), which goes along with what I wrote before...

It says comprenhension on par with verbal ability, and verbal ability is often impaired with hyperlexia. I can't tell what it is you're trying to say at this point. Could you quote the relevant section that supports your point and clearly explain what that point is, exactly?

So how can anyone know they are hyperlexic? I can't find anything about that on the internet.

Bingo! That was exactly what happened to me, and I'm sure it's still a big problem today. My hyperlexia was seen as "giftedness," and yes, in some ways, it IS giftedness. But when I was growing up, nobody saw the red flags that went along with my self-taught reading at age 4. In preschool, I was reading fluently, but I couldn't hop on one foot, skip, or cut with scissors. I think that hyperlexia probably still is labeled as "genius" in today's kids, but I do feel that the motor deficits I showed in preschool would have been brought to more attention nowadays. I was never officially tested for "giftedness," either. I wasn't even in the gifted program at school, because I was so high-functioning that teachers didn't think I needed special services, I guess?

As for whether or not early reading is hyperlexia or just giftedness, in my opinion, hyperlexia almost always goes hand in hand with either ASD symptoms and/or NVLD symptoms. Not every early reader is going to be hyperlexic. In some young children, it may be solely a sign of giftedness. The early reading isn't what defines hyperlexia. It's the problems often associated with it and the vast difference in skills. Hyperlexia is just an early sign of scattered neurocognitive abilities.

And while I'm posting, has anybody else discovered they're hyperlexic in another language? Obviously, since hyperlexia wasn't known about when I was a child, I only feel that I was hyperlexic by retrospective analysis. But I knew about it after I started teaching myself advanced Spanish, and I've found that my talents in learning other languages are really hyperlexic talents. My ability to remember obscure vocabulary and read passages in Spanish is above and beyond, but I have great difficulty speaking and listening.

So is there a way to find out if you're hyperlexic if you were not an early reader?

You have to be an early reader (before age 5) to be labeled as hyperlexic. If you weren't an early reader but have ease with vocabulary and difficulty with comprehension, you may have some sort of learning disability or strong neurocognitive strengths and weaknesses, but it's not hyperlexia. What I meant by the reading not defining hyperlexia is that early reading ALONE doesn't mean hyperlexia. It's the deficits AND the early reading. One or the other but not both doesn't mean hyperlexia the way it is defined in the scientific community.

Yeah, a lot of this happened to me: I ended up in gifted classes, but I also ended up in a year of special education (one where students considered to be more "typical" intellect or smarter but having other learning difficulties and disabilities however - not saying that to save my dignity or anything, just being accurate) in the 5th grade. I don't remember what my physical abilities were like in pre-school (I only remember a little bit from there. Apparently I told them I used to be a cat).

My reading abilities came with a lot of other stuff. Like I would reenact movie scenes, and my mother considered this imaginative play. Maybe it was? I don't know. I also quoted a lot of TV shows and such.

My first grade teacher did think I needed special services, but my mother denied everything and had my IQ tested to prove I was too smart to have such difficulties. Also, I ended up diagnosed with nearsightedness for two years and wore glasses although I question now whether I was really nearsighted or had other visual difficulties.



Yes, thank you. I suspect my early speech is also a sign of such, rather than necessarily a sign of intelligence. Especially since I relied on texts I'd read or things I'd heard to inform how I spoke.



I found that I could read Spanish but I had a lot more trouble learning to listen to it, and I keep forgetting how to speak it. I had similar issues with Russian, French, and German, for that matter.

I think you completely misunderstood my point. What I was saying was, "there is no OFFICIAL DEFINITION of hyperlexia so there's no way to say someone does or doesn't fit an OFFICIAL definition that's written somewhere. I was NOT implying that hyperlexia doesn't exist. Heck- I am hyperlexic. You couldn't convince me it doesn't exist.

That said, you bring up a good point. The DSM is afforded more respect than it deserves, generally speaking. It's a useful tool, but that's all it is.

In the scientific literature, hyperlexia is defined as a combination of good word-reading and poor reading comprehension. I don't know why this is not emphasized on these webpages about hyperlexia.

When I was little, I had good word-reading, but poor reading comprehension. I really didn't understand most of what I was reading or what my mother read to me. I made my mother read to me a lot, because I liked hearing the sounds, not because I enjoyed the stories. I was not at all interested in stories. What I was interested in was sensory-perceptual eggsperiences. I didn't even follow the stories. I also enjoyed reading on my own, because I liked looking at the pictures of the words. I was obsessed with letters and numbers, and I still am. I see them as shapes, and I see words as pictures. Pictures for pictures is object labeling, but if you're going to have comprehension beyond object labeling, then you're going to have to understand strings of words at a higher level, and that is where the comprehension problems come in. It doesn't mean that I can't learn to understand at a higher level, but I didn't when I was little, because I didn't use language. I did after I learned to use language for communication. There was a big light bulb that turned on in my head, when I learned to use language. My reading comprehension went up to the high 90s percentiles by the time that I was in fifth grade, but only a couple of years before that, I didn't really understand most of what I was reading. I had a lot of the traits listed on the webpages, but also the most important traits of good word-reading and poor reading comprehension from the scientific literature.

you called for hyperlexian?

ohhh oops.

It also says this:
(emphasis mine)

also

Both of the quotes suggest reading comprehension weakness relative to his other abilities, but not relative to peers. ("advanced for Ethan's age", "in the average range")


Just trying to find the truth.
I hate to repeat myself, but most sources I found did not list reading comprehension as an issue (beyond the normal limitations for the age). Even the wiki source posted by you is not fully clear on that.
But I'm starting to feel, like I'm flogging a dead horse here...

In other words, his comprehension was behind is reading ability. Which is consistent with what you've been told in this thread.



So, in other words, you were wrong about comprehension not being a part of hyperlexia. Why are you trying to mince words so you weren't wrong?



The wiki source was explicit on that point - that comprehension was higher but decoding was lower for dyslexia, and decoding was higher but comprehension was lower for hyperlexia.

You are flogging a dead horse, because you are trying to appeal to your own ignorance about hyperlexia as defining hyperlexia.

Both the wiki page and the page on the three types of hyperlexia I linked mention reduced comprehension compared to decoding. The study you linked says exactly the same thing. At this point you're trying to argue that black is white and up is down.

These also mention comprehension issues:

http://www.autismkey.com/hyperlexia/

http://giftedkids.about.com/od/glossary ... ia_def.htm

http://www.k12academics.com/disorders-d ... hyperlexia

This one says it rather explicitly:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... hyperlexia



I do like that the study acknowledged hyperlexia in someone whose comprehension and decoding ability are advanced for their age, as that describes me fairly closely. My comprehension was definitely behind my decoding ability, however.

I don't see how I was wrong when both you and the article confirmed what I have been saying all along.

And it's exactly what I wrote. (Read it again) That does not mean that there are comprehension problems bigger than in peers.

Even you supported this by writing "hyperlexia in someone whose comprehension and decoding ability are advanced for their age".

I repeat comprehension and decoding ability are advanced for their age.

That was my point - the comprehension "problems" exist in relation to one's own other abilities, but not compared to peers. I don't see that as a "condition".

If what I am saying still does not come through, feel free to send some more ad hominem my way.

Here are some eggsamples of my obession with letters, eggspecially letters as shapes and words as pictures:

EFT the EFT
Reading the Mind in the Eyes
How Red And Blue Make Purple

Not eggsplicitly about hyperlexia, but I wrote blog posts related to this topic of early reading and late speaking, which was my pattern of language development consistent with hyperlexia:
Read, Write, Listen, Speak
Linguistic Autistic

I don't know how other kids with hyperlexia learn to use language, but I was taught eggsplicitly, so I made the transition from words as pictures or words as sounds to words with meanings.

Last edited by btbnnyr on 26 Jul 2012, 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I could not cross the midline as a child and as a result I was a late reader; after I learned to read I was reading very advanced books. Today, I have a fare above average reading speed. Yet, for reasons behind my ability to comprehend my Neurologist believes that I have Dyslexia. From a subjective standpoint Dyslexia and Asperger Syndrome actually overlap more than you might think.

Besides being obsessed with words as pictures, I am also obsessed with the sounds of words. I really like words that rhyme, and all my poetry and songs rhyme. Poems and songs that don't rhyme, I don't like.

The visual and auditory perceptual features of words, I am really obsessed with. I also like to write sentences this way, object first, subject and verb second. It makes more sense to me, because I think from the objects, not the other way around.