I am wondering whether the following can be regarded as Hyperlexia. When I was around six years old I was told by school that I had the reading age of an eleven year old. I read and read. However I quickly went downhill at school and came near the bottom of the class but continued reading. It was hard to learn at school. But my mother bought a set of child encyclopaedias. I decided I would read them from beginning to end and remember stuff. I went through all of them. I became obsessed with Greek mythology, did my own chemistry experiments loved electronics and microscopy. I did all this at home. However I was doing so badly at school I was sent to Child Guidance. As a child and teenager I felt and thought I was an inferior retard. I know that word should not be used these days.
In the 90s I was diagnosed as Dyspraxic. I did not know that this was classed as neurodivergent till recently. However I questioned my diagnosis as I remember that I read so well from an early age and Dyspraxia can be seen as a learning difficulty although I had the other stuff as well. Co-ordination and attention problems. However I have only just been finding out that so many Autistic people have Dyspraxia symptoms and some people are diagnosed Dyspraxic early then Autistic later. It seems I might have had some autistic traits e.g maybe a form of Alexithymia. I have read that only 6-14% of people with Autism have Hyperlexia. However 84% of people with Hyperlexia have Autism. When I read about children with Hyperlexia the articles often refer to say three year olds learning to read quickly. As such I wonder if in my situation would a six year old learning to read like an eleven year older count as Hyperlexia. What do others think as I want to check this stuff.
