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Hyperlexia in autistic adults

Lotus

Recently the subject of hyperlexia came up on another thread where I briefly discussed it, but I've since been wondering if it can help mask autism.

Hyperlexia in children is categorized by word reading ability well above what would be expected for their age, and an intense fascination for written material from an early age. It is now thought that there are three types of hyperlexia, and type 2 occurs in children with autism - they often prefer books and magnetic letters over other toys, and frequently remember important numbers like license plates and birth dates.

In adults, hyperlexia includes preferring written communication over verbal conversation, feeling more comfortable writing than speaking, a love of language, patterns & wordplay, and getting lost in a book. Here is a link to a fuller description:

https://www.sagebrushcounseling.com/blog/hyperlexia-in-adults

I'm wondering if an ability to be incredibly articulate in writing helps mask verbal communication problems?

Parents

  • I never knew there was a specific name to that! I just remember parents evenings when I was in reception class and my teacher saying I had the reading age of someone in year 6. That’s really made me think now though (about preferring written over verbal communication), feels like hyperlexia could be a trait of most neurodivergent people, no?

  • in reply to c00lch1ck

    I'm dyslexic and I didn't learn to read until I was 6, but now I'm a wordy person, I was told by an educational psychologist that I have an exceptional vocabularly, so I don't think it's always one or the other.

    What I didn't know was that about 60% of my dyslexia was caused by an astigmatism that means my eyes don't see the same mid point, so I miss thin letters between fat ones, like the word mid, I sort of know there's something between the M and the D, but I'm not sure what and it's worse in words such as little where there's lots of uprights. I'd suggest anyone who has or thinks they have dyslexia to have an eye test and specifically ask about an astigmatism, I had corrective lens's at the age of 42 and read the word little for the first time properly in normal adult script, they are so worth it, it's like having clean windows instead of filthy smudged ones.

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  • in reply to c00lch1ck

    I'm dyslexic and I didn't learn to read until I was 6, but now I'm a wordy person, I was told by an educational psychologist that I have an exceptional vocabularly, so I don't think it's always one or the other.

    What I didn't know was that about 60% of my dyslexia was caused by an astigmatism that means my eyes don't see the same mid point, so I miss thin letters between fat ones, like the word mid, I sort of know there's something between the M and the D, but I'm not sure what and it's worse in words such as little where there's lots of uprights. I'd suggest anyone who has or thinks they have dyslexia to have an eye test and specifically ask about an astigmatism, I had corrective lens's at the age of 42 and read the word little for the first time properly in normal adult script, they are so worth it, it's like having clean windows instead of filthy smudged ones.

Children
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