Hyperlexia in Autistic Kids
Commonly co-occurring, but not mutually inclusive
Hyperlexia
Hyperlexia is advanced and unexpected reading skills and abilities in children way beyond their chronological age.
Hyperlexia is most common in, but not exclusive to, Autistic children.
Approximately 84% of hyperlexic kids are also autistic.
A child can be one and not the other, however; approximately 9–14% of autistic children are hyperlexic.
Hyperlexic adults
People aren’t identified as precocious readers, or hyperlexic, in adulthood. Actually, no one is diagnosed as hyperlexic because it’s not a medical condition or pathology. It’s a term to describe a phenomenon, and usually a subset of a different condition, such as Autism.
However hyperlexic children do generally grow up to become adults at some point, so we do exist.
Hyperlexia in adults looks like:
History of early and voracious reading in childhood
A continued love of reading
Often have weaker verbal communication skills and prefer communicating in other ways
Exceptionally skilled at decoding and spotting patterns
Enjoys word play, word puzzles, and may also love learning new languages
Some hyperlexic folks may have difficulty with reading comprehension, where others may have exceptional reading comprehension. Some may be equally skilled with numbers, while others may have great difficulty with math.
Some may have uncommonly good memories, while others may struggle with memorization, in particular where use of working memory is required. The common threads are unusually early reading abilities and an insatiable love of reading.
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
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References
Martens, G., & Van der Gucht, L. (2022). All to No A Veil: Crip Humour and Neurodiversity in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. In D. de Muijnck, J. Jumpertz, R. Schneider, & T. Turnbull (Eds.), Poetics of Disturbances: Narratives of Non-Normative Bodies and Minds. Leiden: Brill. http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-8760869
Ostrolenk, A., d’Arc, B. F., Jelenic, P., Samson, F., Mottron, L. (2017). Hyperlexia: Systematic review, neurocognitive modelling, and outcome.
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 79, 134–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.04.029
Wei, X., Christiano, E. R., Yu, J. W., Wagner, M., & Spiker, D. (2015). Reading and math achievement profiles and longitudinal growth trajectories of children with an autism spectrum disorder. Autism, 19(2), 200–210. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361313516549
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