Hyperlexia: A Gift or an Obstacle to Overcome?
2020 has not been without its challenges, as you all know, but it has also provided some pleasant surprises for our family.
On the first day of quarantine, my mom sat down with our youngest, Abrian, to work on labeling objects with flashcards. This is something we’ve done with all of our kids to help facilitate speech development, but really wasn’t something we had done much of with him. He was 28 months at the time. The cards have two sides—one side has a picture of the object, and the other just the word.
My mom accidentally dropped some of the cards and noticed my son was picking them up from the floor—word side-up—and reciting what they were without looking at the pictures. At first she thought it was a fluke and called me over to see what was happening. We both stood there in shock as we watched him pick up word after word correctly reading what was written on the card.
Here’s a video taken shortly after this discovery:
Abrian has ALWAYS been fascinated by letters and has an incredible memory. He has favorite letters—he flip-flops between “w” and “y”—and his favorite toy is a bag of magnetic letters. We even threw him an alphabet-themed 2nd birthday party last year with books as favors. At the time, I really didn’t think much about this particular interest.
I brought up this newly discovered skill to his speech therapist and that’s when I learned about “hyperlexia.” I had heard the term before, and knew that it basically meant a kid who can read beyond their age-level, but hadn’t done much research beyond that. So after our meeting with his SLP, I did some Googling.
Though much is still being learned about hyperlexia, according to Dr. Treffert (the person believed to be the leading expert on the subject) there are three types:
TYPE 1: Neurotypical children who simply read early
TYPE 2: Autistic children whose precocious reading is seen as a “splinter skill” of autism.
TYPE 3: Children who read early, possess some traits of autism, but whose autistic traits fade over time.
It’s estimated 84% of children with hyperlexia have autism, while only about 6 - 14% of children with autism are hyperlexic.
As I mentioned previously, our youngest was diagnosed with ASD shortly before his 2nd birthday, so if he were to be classified as having a certain “type” of hyperlexia at this time it would be Type 2. I wasn’t entirely surprised to learn that this could be a byproduct of autism, having familiarized myself with savant syndrome previously, but I refused to see this as anything other than a gift. I’ve read scholarly articles that insist encouraging reading in hyperlexic children could actually serve as a detriment to their overall development, and while I’m not an expert, I don’t believe that to be the case for our child.
Now, that’s not to say I don’t understand the concern nor the belief that hyperlexia doesn’t present unique challenges for our family as well. For example, every week after Abrian’s OT session (via Zoom), I tell myself I’m finally going to spray paint his blocks to help the sessions run more smoothly. The blocks we own have letters on them, and while Abrian should be attempting to build a cube or a pyramid, he instead spends most of that portion of the session distracted by the letters, “Wook, Mommy! It’s a ‘B’!” [Even now as I’m writing this, I hear him yelling “ALPHABET!” as he searches for that aforementioned bag of letters we’ve temporarily hidden in hopes of him playing with OTHER toys.]
In an effort to learn more, I joined a few hyperlexic parenting groups on Facebook. And while not all were this way, I was a bit disappointed to see how much distance some of the guardians were trying to place between their children and autism. I felt as though some of the adults in this group felt some sort of superiority by being able to assert that their child is “Type 3” hyperlexic instead of “Type 2.” Others seemed to have an overwhelming fear that their child was beginning to “act too autistic”—none of this was aligned with my beliefs and it left a foul taste in my mouth. Autism isn’t a dirty word.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that hyperlexia is NOT currently a diagnosis in the DSM-5, rather it is listed only as a splinter skill of autism as mentioned above. I haven’t done enough reading and personal research yet to decide how I feel about hyperlexia as a standalone diagnosis, so I’ll leave any of my additional thoughts on that out of this.
I’m not sure how hyperlexia will affect Abrian in the long-term. I’ve heard children with hyperlexia potentially have lower reading comprehension skills. However, many of the other challenges associated with hyperlexia can, in my opinion, be attributed to autism as well. Difficulty with expressive/receptive language, sensory processing challenges, difficulty understanding abstract language, echolalia, stimming, etc. being among them.
I suppose for us, it’s hard to see the reading itself as some sort of insurmountable hurdle when he’s already overcome SO much from that list above thus far.
So, have you heard of hyperlexia? What do you think—a challenge to be overcome or a gift to be encouraged?
Some additional articles on hyperlexia if you’re interested: