When you mentioned the scenario of saying “what?” And the person starts to repeat themselves and then you’re like “Oh yeah I already heard you” it resonated with me so much. I was diagnosed on 1st April and I’ve done that my whole life. It’s like saying “what?” Or “sorry” is buying time for it to sink in rather than blankly staring while I work out what they said. I always knew that was the case, but people are more receptive to thinking you didn’t hear them than you trying to explain that the information didn’t go in. With the latter, you can be labelled stupid or slow. I was tested as a kid SO MANY TIMES for hearing problems - perfect hearing.
Yeah it really makes you think you're going crazy when you "can't hear" but the hearing tests come back fine. I don't know how well known auditory processing issues were when I was younger, but I hope they are more widely recognised now.
Yo Samdy Sam I would hope so too! I am roughly the same age as you and i never knew it was a thing. I still experience it now and my hearing is confirmed over and over as being perfectly fine. I actually hear sounds others do not, too - like stuff that makes no sense when you try to explain to NTs. “What do you mean you can hear the WiFi router and the bulb in the lamp?”😅 The NT experience of the world must be so quiet! 😅
Yes, having your hearing constantly tested determining it is auditory processing delay due to a disability of intellect vs the disability of audio filtering. Suddenly with earphones taking away background noise, etc... oh look... they are fine intellectually no learning disability for the IEP. While totally missing the point eliminating background noise is CRITICAL. Oh well, the ignorance of the typical. Whatcha gonna do🙅🙅🙅. Sorry watching my boys with exceptional hearing that was disabling in certain environments be treated like they were dunces was just so annoying lol. What is the goal here education system ?? Is it teaching the ability to learn in the environment of the classroom or is the goal learning the subject in the best way possible for the child? When they don’t allow noise canceling headphones or a pullout in a sound reducing room yet they can. Argh
I have a problem with people repeating things to me even though they know I heard them. This could happen days later and it is quite strenuous to pay attention to someone when you feel like they are treating you like your stupid or dont listen. It can feel abusive. Alot of the time they do it to try and get a reaction. Another problem i find is getting bogged down in what a person said and trying to process it as they are still speaking. Sometimes people use elaborate sentences to try and seem smart what they could have easily been explained in fewer words. Then I have to declutter what they have said to get the information. I was the kid staring out the window at the Jacaranda tree. I could read already when i started school, and i realise now that it didnt really matter what size the words were. Some other kids would struggle because the word was large. I was also tested for hearing problems. I think its funny when your told you dont listen but can sing in tune and play music by ear.
@@RachaelStephanie Yeah, I totally identify myself with that. For me was with the old TV. When they were on, even if black and nothing on them I can hear a high pitch from 2 rooms away. And me coming to my parents and saying.. I think you left the TV on. 😅. I also do the "what?" thing all the time. Is like I need to mentaly visualize what someone sais, and takes too much time. Great video Yo Samdy Sam :)
I totally get a word looking “right” or “wrong”. If I have trouble spelling something that someone asks me to, I write it down and voila! I know the answer.
I can type words without thinking about it, but when I have to write out a word but hand, I will write out the wrong spelling. I will know it's wrong but sometimes I just have to keep guessing until I stumble upon the right one
My aspie daughter started to read at age 3. I explained phonics to her and she was off. She was reading to her brother who is 2 years older. When she went to school I told her teacher that she could read. Her teacher wanted to know who taught her. She is 46 now and has had a lifelong enjoyment of books and reading.
Hi there! My 3 year old is showing the same signs. She didn’t talk till she was two. Now at three she is saying 1-2 words and sometimes a sentence, but she loves ABCs and can read books. What was your daughters experience with language and socializing as a toddler and child?
@@sarahgumball8597 My daughter is 48 now. I didn't know that she was on the autism spectrum when she was a child. She seemed to be a very intelligent... slightly hyperactive child to me. It was in adulthood that we realized that she and I are not neurotypical. She graduated college. As an adult, she lives independently... Today, she has a very intense techy job, is introverted, and is emotionally on the level of a 15 year old. She loves animals. She has never dated. She has friends that are Aspies.
@@sarahgumball8597 Hello! My 3 year old is also on the spectrum, she didn't speak much either till she was two. After a whole year of speech therapy, she can now speak in 4-5 word sentences. I noticed her ability to read once her speech improved, she can spell her name and can read 2-3 word phrases. She's had a love for the ABCs and numbers since she was a baby. She's now working on her tracing skills and has almost mastered it!
I didn’t have a lifelong love of reading, but I did teach myself from age 2 or so. In preschool this interest began fading as teachers barked at me to write a letter on a white board before I could sit at circle time as the reward. I was annoyed and stopped enjoying it
I am hyperlexic and autistic. I taught myself how to read at an early age (3 to 4) and therefor was really bored in the first years of school. Other kids hated grammar lessons, but I loved grammar in school and the German language has a lot of rules. I also definitely struggled with auditory learning, which was why I struggled to learn English initially. That was until I started to read English books obsessively which was when I started to improve rapidly. Because of my auditory processing problems, I actually didn’t like learning new languages for a long time. Now I’m starting to think, that I might just have to learn languages differently... Thanks for the interesting topic, Sam.
Draconika I had a really similar experience, except I started reading VERY young. I actually skipped a grade because of my reading capabilities. It really sucked, I couldn’t make any friendships.
Früher in der Grundschule fand ich die Grammatik immer ziemlich langweilig, es war mir halt alles klar und ich hatte keine Ahnung, warum die anderen Kinder aus meiner Klasse damit solche Probleme hatten. Später war Grammatik dann auch mein Lieblingsthema im Deutschunterricht und mein Deutschlehrer war regelmäßig verzweifelt, wie ich es schaffe, in Grammatik und Rechtschreibung absolut fehlerfrei zu sein, bei den Interpretationen und freien Texten aber regelmäßig zu versagen. Auch heute noch sitze ich in Deutsch immer ahnungslos vor den Texten und muss die Sätze bei höchster Konzentration mehrmals lesen, bis alles bei mir angekommen ist und dann habe ich ja noch nicht mal den Inhalt verstanden.
@@blueberrymuffin_144 I had the same experience! Skipped a grade as well and difficulty forming friendships. Mainly 1 at a time. I "taught myself to read" at 2 1/2 is what my parents told me.
Hi. I've noticed your message. I also have auditory processing disorder(APD), which is one of the comorbidities of ADHD/ASD. Anyway, I am hyperlexic, but my story is a bit different, because I live in another country, and the school rules are a bit different here. I started reading fluently at the age of five, and my first novel at the age of 8-9. Anyway, after that, I've been impressed by other languages, and my mom taught me the basic rules of reading Russian, and I was able to read a short prayer in the back of a picture. And later I began curious about reading in greek. In highschool, we needed to study Cyrillic old texts and practice reading. To be fair, I was the best in my class, and next to me was a teenager who learned the Russian alphabet(the Cyrillic alphabet is similar to the Russian alphabet). Meanwhile, I've began interested in reading about new things only in English. I was obssessed with English, and I need to say this: I was not able to hear anything, or understand what they were saying. So, I applying this technique. Read with the captions below. It helped me overcome my auditory difficulties, and learned that it is only part of the brain that is weaker than average. So, keep trying and don't stop until you have mastered a new language!
My son was 2. We were at a restaurant and he wrote the words brown, red, green, yellow, in the same colour crayons. My father in law nearly fell on his back. This was something to be proud of not listed as a dysfunction.
my brother was speaking full sentences as a baby. i, apparently, spontaneously learned to read at 4 years old (thank you richard scarry and my parents tirelessly reading the books for me!) but i already knew how to write my own name and other words at three. my mom says i was on the floor with a newspaper and suddenly just exclaimed i could read. i don't remember that moment myself, but i have vivid memories from that age and before, mostly negative or unfair situations, but also some happy sensory and visual moments (thunderstorm, looking up at a sky full of stars on a very cold night, summer day under the laundry line with my kitten etc). we start school at age seven so i was way ahead and very frustrated during the first years. we have subtitles on tv and movies, so i also became bilingual (finnish/english) on my own. i'm good with languages in general and quickly catch on to grammar, but listening comprehension is definitely my pitfall. i'm studying japanese currently and it's my goal to make it my third fluent language, but it's so much harder at forty than four! i absolutely have an alert inner grammar nazi, which is fortunately kept in check by my more compassionate qualities. i spot mistakes in text without trying. and yes, i am autistic.
hope learning japanese goes well for you! i found the phonetic alphabet pretty easy to read after the initial learning curve of actually memorizing the symbols. theres a lot of juicy linguistics history to the language as well which i enjoy :)
I love Where's Wally (or Waldo), and I love catching spelling mistakes in professional writings. Always a good laugh. My boyfriend has poor grammar however, which annoys the heck out of me. For example: "You was there." I'm like "No, it's 'You WERE there.'" My punctuation isn't great though. 😂
Yes, me too and my son. Both of us "spontaneously" could read. They skipped me ahead in school. I'm 55 and he's 30. He is diagnosed with Asperger's. I am not but I am very suspicious that I would fall into the "higher functioning" autism spectrum too.
I learned to read at age two, and have loved it ever since. When I was young, my preschool teacher called my mother in for a conference because I "had a discipline problem". The problem was that I "was pretending I could read", and would look at a book I brought rather than pay attention during reading lessons. My mother told her that I could in fact read, and would read to my younger sister every night. Despite this, the teacher insisted there was no way I could read. Eventually my mum picked a random magazine from the teacher's desk and had me read an article out loud. The teacher was still convinced that I couldn't read, and insisted I had memorized the article.
i'm autistic and hyperlexic! the huge confusion about phonics resonates with me a lot, though it was always seen to others as "thinking you're better than everyone else" and being snooty... i used to really puzzle my teachers, even in the last year of primary school when i was the best reader and writer in the class by far, but my spelling was terrible; i just couldn't process the words they were saying into the words they mean and then how to spell that all before they had moved on to the next word! even now when people spell a word out loud to me it's just A Sound rather that actually registering the sounds as letters
I am autistic and hyperlexic, I finally realize now why I find Spanish listening tests so hard! It goes to fast for me to process. I learnt to read when I was 2-3 years old, and I've always loved reading since. I also found phonics really hard to understand!
Spanish is spoken at about 8 syllables per second and English at about 6 syllables per second. I have exactly the same problem with listening tests in foreign languages.
My mom has always told me I learned to read super early, and I have always always always been a fast reader who reads far above my peers' so-called "levels" (I always thought those were stupid anyway but I digress) and the stuff you say about finding it easier to understand when I'm processing visually (instead of through auditory means) resonates sO MUCH. I cannot - simply cannot - remember something if I do not know how it is spelled. Names, new words, what I need at the grocery store... If I can picture the spelling in my head (and know for sure that's how it's spelled) then I can remember it for pretty much as long as I need to. I've got a mind for dates, phone numbers, names, and phrases from real life or television but /only/ when I can spell them. I'm investigating if autism could be a diagnosis for me, and this honestly is one of the major ones (also masking and sensory sensitivity), thank you so much for sharing!
I need people to get my attention first when speaking to me. If they just start saying something to me when I'm busy with something else it's like my speech recognition just takes a bit to wake up and figure out where each word begins and ends, and then it works correctly after that. But sometimes it just sounds like gibberish the first second or so and it's so weird
Same :p to me it sounds like "What ______ you ______ to _____ later? " My brain just catches parts and discards the rest. I think this is hyperfocus from ADHD. It takes a while to switch out of it and re-position the targeting crosshair. :P
i am hyperlexic and 4utisti(, and just wanted to say... every single thing you mentioned having had in this video, i experienced and experience EXACTLY the same! watching your channel is so validating :)
I’ve recently realized that I may be autistic, and knowing that I had hyperlexia and selective mutism at age 3 makes a world of sense now. I’m also hard of hearing so that makes life fun.
I haven’t been diagnosed as hyperlexic, but what you described sounds like me. I could read before I was in school ( I also figured out how multiplication worked before school, although I never quite was good at doing it practically), and I have always been fascinated by language, etymology, etc. I also self-identify as autistic, starting less than a year ago after an online acquaintance from the U.K. started sharing about her (official, medical) diagnosis. I am 56 and live in the US, so I doubt I will be able to afford an actual diagnosis (I’m also unemployed and have no healthcare insurance). I really appreciate your channel and the feeling that I get from learning more about autism in adults, especially women. Thank you so much, Sam!
So much of this resonated with me. I was reading by age 3. I taught myself, I suppose (with help from an amazing caregiver) because I didn’t understand well from being read to. In first grade (I’m in the US), I was placed in third-grade reading, and that “step-up” continued throughout primary school. And I’ve asked, “What?” all my life, despite numerous hearing tests that said my hearing was great. By the time I had finished asking, though, I had processed what was said. I finally realized (five decades later) that it’s an auditory processing issue. This video is life-changing to me, to realize I’m not as “weird” (in one way, at least) as I thought-that others had/have similar experiences. Thank you!!!
Wow! Yet another piece of the puzzle for me. One of my earlier school memories was my parents being called into my 1/2 day kindergarten class to meet with the teacher and administrators. Apparently, while the rest of the class was learning A-B-C, I was writing the entire alphabet backwards (mirror image) and they thought I was "slow". My parents laughed and said, "she just likes to hold it up to the mirror." Like you, it wasn't interpreted as anything much except high intelligence, which is why I was allowed to order a 1000 page book (Gone With The Wind) in third grade, from Scholastic, and finished it in three days. Also, I have scripts for EVERYTHING in my adult life. I have such a hard time with ad libbing business conversations. I always write down key talking points and answers I think I will need. INCLUDING my own work telephone number & address, in case I have to say it on an answering machine. You're great! And I'm loving these informative videos. I'm learning so much about myself and it's made me feel very much comfortable in my own skin for the first time in 45 years. Keep it up!
I have been down the autism self-discovery track for years, but only tonight came across hyperlexia through an autistic youtuber, which led the algoritms to introduce your video. I am currently mindblown because the way YOU desbribe this is me, my childhood experience AND my daughter with astonishing accuracy! EVERYTHING you just said fits 100%. That is rare. I feel just as struck by lightning as when I found a label for my synesthesia half a lifetime ago ❤ Fantasic, thank you!
okay, this is crazy... literally everything i've seen you say resonates with my life?? i've learned to read by myself at 3, to write at 4 (in portuguese). learned english by myself at about 9, 10. both of those because i had wanted to read harry potter, since i was obsessed with it. so, i was reading HP in portuguese at 4/5 years old, and in english at 9/10. dude, the thing about the word just looking weird, like. YES. i really have always thought i was the only one. everyone when i was 3 just thought i had remembered them, but no, i had learned them after getting obcessed with some words around the city/house and just really not being able to focus until i found out how they sounded and what they meant.
My mother told me that at age 3 i could read but she didn't know how i learned lol. At that time, we had a game: I was reading everything at the street and say it to her, and i did this a lot in my childhood because it mades me relax. Between 3 and 5 years old i read but i read more the same books, like an astronomy one for kids. Also my kinder teacher (3 years old) told to my mother that "i talked like a teacher". My mother thinks thats why i never connected a lot with my peers. (Sorry for my english, it's not my first language)
I am autistic, hyperlexic and have an auditory processing disorder. I had no idea the 3 concepts were related. My son and my grandson are also the same. My son was reading by age 2 and reading chapter books by age 4. He started by reading cereal boxes including the ingredient list. He was diagnosed with severe ADHD by age 4 yet skipped up to 7 grades by what should have been grade 5. His son is reading and spelling everything he can get his hands on. His latest obsession is creating letters with LEGO and spelling out words with them. I absolutely love your videos because I can so strongly relate to them. I have thought my whole life that in some ways I was just strange and didn’t fit in (why was no one else obsessed with astronomy and weather) and in other ways that everyone else must also struggle with the same things I do. Your videos explain so much. My son and his wife love watching them too. Keep it up.
Hi Sam! I'm hyperlexic and autistic, too. I also have the same issue with audio processing. It's especially difficult for me to process spoken language when I am in a space that has lots of competing ambient noise. I hear SO well that I hear everything, all at once, and it's just so dang cacophonous that I cannot "hear" what is being said to me. Really what I can't do is making meaning of that particular group of sounds in relation to all the other sounds that are coming in at essentially the same volume. Gotta love dem ear plugs! YES. Thank you for your videos!
Long before kindergarten, I remember secretly reading “The Littlest Angel,” but telling no one because I was afraid that grownups would stop reading to me if they knew I could read.
I knew my letters before i went to school, and I remember, when I was three, my brother was born and his name is Matthew. At three, I was fascinated, because of the spelling, "M-A-T-T-H-E-W," double T and W double U, and M is an upside down W. I am fascinated by words, too. I can speak English, Japanese, a bit of Chinese, I remember "Silent Night," in German, a bit of French, and a few words in Arabic.
Undiagnosed autism, 32, just watched one of your vids a few weeks ago, and everything… my whole life makes sense. Autism literally explains the majority of my challenges in both childhood and adulthood. Now I’ve gone down a rabbit hole, taking all the tests online I could possibly take and researching like a maniac. Quite sure I am also hyperlexic. Started reading on my own by age 3. Also bugged my mom constantly in the first month of grade 3 to request I skip a grade and she finally caved. (She was also a teacher) So I skipped grade 3. It was hard and I was bullied, but I think it wouldve been harder to stay in grade 3. Funny you say you think you would’ve been a good proofreader. I had a job for many years running a data entry department at a printing company. All finals went through me before going to print…. And the font was size 7 😬 it was my favourite job ever. I was so good at it. I find if I look at a word repeatedly the meaning “disappears” and then the word looks strange to me. Not sure if that’s related, but it’s an interesting thing that happens to me. Anywho, thanks for your vids, they have helped me figure out who I am. It’s funny, figuring out I’m autistic, makes me feel like there’s nothing wrong with me… I’m just autistic. :) before I always felt like being different was weird and I should be more like others. 💕
Wow. My story exactly. I was reading and spelling words prior to age 3, and writing sentences before age 5. I then masked extremely heavily until autistic burnout at age 46 and was diagnosed autistic this year at age 48. Still coming to terms with it all, your videos help me enormously!
4 years late to this video. I am almost 35, hyperlexic, diagnosed ADHD at age 6, and have my assessment for autism in a month. Excited about it. Also scared that they will tell me “you don’t have autism just calm down.” Good luck to all out there on the journey of self discovery. I wish you the best and though I don’t know you, I am on your side.
I love languages, especially the etymology of words and finding similarities in different languages (to the degree that I probably annoyed the heck out of my Spanish teacher by constantly finding connections between Spanish and English (neither are my native languages). I don't know if it can quite be called hyperlexia, but I learned to read at the age of five, which is two years before school starts here. My older brother had started school, and I found his books absolutely fascinating, and learned to read before him, on my own. I'm Finnish, and the way kids are taught to read at school is through spelling letter by letter and syllable by syllable, and I kinda skipped that phase and went straight to reading and writing full words. I remember being really worried when I started school, about not knowing how to use syllables, but it turned out that it wasn't that hard after all. I'm supposed to hear my diagnosis results on whether I have ASD or not in June, and as a kid everyone just figured I'm smart. I definately learn things best through reading and finding connections, instead of by hearing. It helps me to focus on listening to doodle or draw while I listen (or fiddle with something), but I faze out really easily. And especially when I'm tired, I can accidentally flip words (like pig Latin) and say them wrong without even noticing. Which is very embarrasing sometimes. 😂
It's interesting what you say about flipping words. Puns and wordplay come naturally to me, to the point that I'll use them in everyday speech, much to the annoyance of my dear wife. Spoonerisms are a particular favourite of mine, "pying fran" instead of "frying pan" and so on.
The worst you never realise you flipped the words until everybody is laughing and you pass to robot talking while trying to process what the hell is happened
This is 100% me. I taught myself to read when I was 3, because apparently I complained that my older siblings could read and I couldn't, and my mum just gave me a book and said "well go ahead then". I could also write a few words, but writing came a bit later and while I hardly ever made any spelling mistakes, my handwriting was not very pretty in primary school. I was also always interested in languages and alphabets and other script systems. I have a Master's degree in Indoeuropean Linguistics (which included learning to translate from Latin, Greek, Gothik, Sanscrit, Old Irish, Old Persian, and a few others) and I can read a fair bit of French and a bit of Spanish, but the only languages I can actually speak are my native language German, and fluent English. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years reading, first in German, then also in English. After meeting my now-husband, I developed the theory that we might both be autistic, and while he got his formal diagnosis right away, I came out of the process without a diagnosis. The diagnostic process is still very much focused on male children, and unless you're lucky enough to find a professional (AND get an appointment...) who specializes in autism in adult women, or you're very much IN YOUR FACE autistic, it's very hard to get a diagnosis. So for now, my overwhelmed and clinically depressed self has temporarily given up, and I live as a self-diagnosed Aspie (I know, it's ASD now) and try to muddle through the best I can. My husband hasn't really DONE anything with his diagnosis (like getting support etc), but it came as such a relief to finally know why he is different, and it helps us both understand the way we experience things.
This is extremely eye opening. I've known I'm hyperlexic, but some of the things you mentioned I definitely experience and didn't realize they are related to hyperlexia. I am obsessed with root words, and I was just telling my husband the other day how fascinating prefixes and suffixes are. I actually had a really shitty boyfriend in college who was always telling me my obsession with my phonetics class was ridiculous. I just found it completely fascinating that you can write things with phonetic symbols and read them that way. I didn't understand phonemes or phonics when I was a kid either. In fact, I was spelling perfectly until a teacher was telling us to sound it out. Then I was spelling things wrong because the sounds didn't match up to the letters. I actually got into trouble because of this, my mom had to come in for a parent teacher conference because of it. The teacher's suggestions made me regress in my spelling. It's angering thinking back on it. I was reading at 2 or 3, my mom said I could read the words in the newspaper or if we drove by a sign. But it's hard for me to read context in certain situations on the internet when someone types something, I read it the wrong way because I can't "read between the lines" and cannot "read" context very well.
I was a hyperlexic kid but I've only just now, thanks to this video, understood why language learning in general is so easy to me! You mentioned the thing about understanding etymology rather than semantics, and now it makes perfect sense to me. I see these connections between words in different related languages and it's really easy for me to read a language I don't really know. On top of my native Finnish I only speak English, German and Swedish, but I can read languages like Latin, Italy, Dutch and Estonian pretty fluently, and understand the context of for example French or Portuguese texts. I've never *tried* to learn any of these additional languages, but I constantly draw these equations between the languages I do know and the new language I'm currently reading. I don't know how to explain this better, but sometimes I can see the etymological history between two cognates and what kind of changes in these languages have lead to the differing cognates. I've always thought it's just the autistic special interest thing where I've always been super interested in languages, but now that I think about it, mere interest doesn't explain how Latin nearly completely opened up to me once I became fluent in English.
I kind of resonate with almost everything you said in this video. I'm only self-/peer-diagnosed as autistic, but I can definitely say I was/am hyperlexic. I really don't remember not being able to read. My mother and grandmother told me I read a newspaper headline to my grandmother when I was 2. I have no memory of that, but I do remember being excited when my older brother started kindergarten (when I was 3) because it meant I could read his books and magazines while he was at school. And I remember being angry when I started kindergarten and learned that we wouldn't have access to the school library, because I wanted to read the rest of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. There were words that I didn't know the definition and pronunciation of, but I did understand how to "sound them out" (don't remember being taught phonics except maybe through Sesame Street) so I usually got fairly close. I'm with you on the spelling, though since the rise of social media, I'm having a harder time with spelling because I see some misspellings so often that they are starting to "look right". And don't get me started on British English vs American English spellings! I'm American, but there are many words that I tend to use British spellings for as often as not, since the Sherlock Holmes books were among my favorites as a child, LOL. I also think I have an auditory processing disorder. I've had several hearing tests through the years, the kind where they put you in a soundproof booth, put headphones on you, and then you press a button when you hear a tone. Each time I was told I have exceptionally good hearing and an exceptional range (and yes, I can hear florescent lights, the old tube-style TVs, etc). But I often have trouble understanding what people say, and definitely do the "what?" and then figure it out before they're done repeating it. A few years ago I realized that I use lip reading to help process what people are saying; it was so instinctual for me that I didn't even know I was doing it until I was in my mid-40's. I think that might be one of several reasons why I have so much anxiety about talking on the telephone.
Hi Sam! I love your videos. I am in my 50's and was (unofficially) diagnosed with Asperger's in my 30's when I found out that one of my son's has Asperger's. (Since then a brother of mine was also diagnosed, in his 40's). I was an early reader, and also learned math early. I agree about the pattern recognition idea; mathematics is all about patterns. I also have the sensory delay thing going on (just ask my husband). I am really good at language, figuring out root words, even in other languages. I actually have seven kids (all adults now) that have various autistic-like traits to varying degrees. And we definitely communicate very well among ourselves :)
I was diagnosed ASD at 56 yrs. old. Looking back I can explain so much of how I looked at the world. Learning about Hyperlexia is amazing. I was reading far above my grade level at a very young age which my parents thought I was just super smart! And I was teaching my younger sister to read by the time she was 4 and I was only 6. The most striking memory was I had learned the “ABC song” and could say it backwards just as quickly and musically as I could forwards before kindergarten. So when I was asked to say my ABC’s in kindergarten I would say it backwards. My teachers thought of me as a precocious smart ass.
yes! my 4 yr old is hyperlexic. he started recognizing words on signs like "exit" "open" "push", etc. at age 2. i pointed to the pictures when i would read him bedtime stories and he made me point to the word i was reading. he just figured it out. he was reading full "frog and toad" stories at age 3, and is beginning to write sentences now at age 4. he even wrote up a birthday card for for me earlier this month! i had an informal diagnosis of asd at age 38 and i have suspected for a while that he may be on the spectrum as well. he used(?) echolalia when he was learning to speak, flaps his hands a bit, and has a knack for arranging things ♥️ thanks so much for these videos. i just found your channel tonight and i am going to watch probably every video very soon 😂
I just wanted to mention that it was really nice to hear that someone else scripts their RUclips videos out thoroughly. I have heard people say that scripted videos are not recommended on RUclips because they make you sound less authentic and are boring. But I also write way better than I can talk, especially on the spot, and have found I need to write very detailed scripts for my videos or else I get lost and fumble a lot. I have felt very insecure about this fact, so hearing that one of my favorite youtubers does the same thing was comforting. :)
Yo Samdy Sam Defiantly live stream if we go off the script in the chat. Your hyper focus on the next part of live stream you've rehearsed. But then live conversation doesn't happen like that then you can notice that the chat how it can come up with something completely different. Which we can all look forward to in the next live stream on empolyment. My suggestion in past comment video ask you anything live stream. But that is unfair of me. That would be really hard on you Samdy. Because you answering question from working memory. For example, What have done this week? That is hard question I feel a delay myself when I'm ask that question. because that you have to go into your working memory for a answer. So it best for you eventhough I don't know what other subscribers think. Keep doing your topic based live stream better because you can plan what to say?
This is so interesting because I'm actually terrible at spelling, partly because I never bothered to learn phonics and partly because I read so fast that my brain just skips over all the middle letters!
😱 I’ve been casually looking into whether or not I could be autistic and this is one I haven’t heard of before. I learned to read at like the age of 2. I remember being so frustrated in 1st grade (when we’d go around the circle and read) that everyone else couldn’t read yet 😂
Yup. I read at 2 yrs old. I communicate so much better via writing. I am selective mute, so makes sense. Both my boys were not too interested in reading at an early, but could if they wanted to. They demonstrated the ability.
Thank you for this very insightful video, where you describe my 3 year old son, autistic, hyperplexic, hypernumeracy, can count in other languages, plays piano and much more but doesn’t communicate, you gave an insight into how he is learning and how he sees things
I recently found your channel and I feel like I've learnt so much - I had no idea this was something linked to autism and watching your videos I relate on so many things. It's fascinating
Yes, yes, and AMEN. Certified Life Coach for ADHD adults, here; diagnosed in adulthood after both daughters were. Noticed ASDers gravitate toward my practice "by chance". I'm aware of symptom "overlap" I inhale everything ADHD/neuroscience, but it's taken me too long to recognize I myself have far more than an "symptom overlap" with ASD. You're a gem- and I admire your determination to get your videos out here! This one put me over the top; I've run out of fresh ways to express, "Oh my gosh- ME, TOO!!" Thank you muchly:-*
Hi Sam, this is the first video of yours I've seen and thank you so much for making it! I was diagnosed autistic as an adult (afab) and I have always struggled with spelling but I am about 80% sure I am hyperlexic. This is because of two main reasons: I don't remember ever not being able to read, and my mum said I could read before I started school at 4 years old. She later walked that back a bit and said I was 'reading along to books I already knew' but I'm going with her first explanation instead. My memories of early reading is hazy because instead of being encouraged in school I think I accidentally tricked my teachers into thinking I was illiterate. So I was stuck on those three words a page books and hating it until Harry Potter came out when I was about 9. That series really got me into reading. Basically I excelled and then stopped... until my classmates nearly caught up. Other things that resonate with what you said and my experiences: in my life I have studied French, German, Spanish, Irish, Welsh, Latin, and ASL - none for very long other than French which I studied for 14 years. I have never ever been good at oral/aural languages but at one point I was the best in the class at written translation. I can still translate Latin by sight. I've started taking an edX ASL Chereology (visual linguistics) course because I figure if I understand the components my ability to understand the signs will go up; I really don't get that whole 'ah,beh,keh' alphabet thing... not sure we did that at my school; I look at the components of words/etymology instead of semantics most of the time (my favourite example about how etymology effects words is comparing diaphragm and schizophrenic which have the same root "phren-" from the greek meaning stomach/belly/mind because that's where the greeks thought your mind was located); and probably more that i forgot in the course of typing this all out. At one point I thought I might be dyslexic because my spelling is really really really bad but my reading is really really good so it can't be dyslexia... I'm still not sure what's going on there tbh.
Fascinating! Pretty sure I am hyperlexic as I was self-taught and reading before I started school aged 4. Newly exploring the possibility I am autistic at age 40. I relate to everything you said so much. I have no hope of remembering someone's name if I can't spell it and picture it in my mind. Actually no hope of remembering or learning anything that I hear if I don't write it down immediately. Audiobooks don't really work for me, I'm always stopping to replay and write things down!
Love this topic, very interesting! My older sister took care of me as a baby because my mum was ill. She says she read to me a lot and that I began reading words out of magazines and newspapers at the age of two. I was definitely reading and writing fluently before starting school. I started at early at age 4 as well and I distinctly remember sitting on the floor with the other kids being shown flash cards with 3 and 4 letter words and thinking, ‘Can’t you lot do this already?’ I read through all the ‘baby’ books in the first week or two and they didn’t know what to do with me so they put me in the next year up, I can’t remember how all that worked out in terms of how long I spent in which school year, but I remember being told I had a reading age of 13 when I was only 6. I was given older children’s books to read, and whilst I could technically read out the words, I did not know what they all meant, and nobody seemed to realise or question that. This was in the early 1970’s, and the teachers were the kind that only take that job because they enjoy torturing children. By contrast, I have always had problems with figures and arithmetic, so much that even now, budgeting and working out value for money, or knowing I’m getting the right amount of change makes me very anxious and confused. I think there is certainly an issue (or at least there was when I was growing up) that if a child is intelligent in one area (especially reading/writing) it is assumed they should be that way across the board and should also be well behaved and obedient. Not always the case!!
Thank you for making this video and others. With this one it has inspired me to find a good English teacher on here as I have a fascination with life and I write poetry and so I feel the need to advance in my vocabulary so that I can put words to my feelings much more.
This is me. You are describing my childhood. I was in chapter books by the time most of my 1st grade classmates were still reading early readers. And it's very interesting to note that audio books (most of them anyway) are sort of like auditory versions of "dyslexia friendly" fonts. So that audio books are at a pace and diction that are easy for me to interpret - where, say, I have to watch TV shows with subtitles on just to understand what anyone is saying. Interestingly enough, this meant that I really enjoyed foreign films because reading didn't bother me at all.
Thank you... I already assumed it, because mostly you speak so fast, that to follow you i need to set the RUclips speed on 0.75, which helps a lot. No critics, luckily RUclips has that feature. I remember after having read all books in the local tobacco-shop that also functioned as local library, i went to an official library on the age of 9-10. I looked at the books on the shelves and selected some on Atoms, Neutrons, Radio-astronomy, geological (stones) and Planets. When i put them on the desk she said: "Oh but the children-books are over there." But i was allowed to take them with me.
As a former SLP in training and a linguist, that sounds EXACTLY like auditory processing disorder!! It has absolutely nothing to do with your hearing acuity (how well you can hear in ideal conditions) and really starts looking holistically at hearing and the processing of that. I also think I am (mildly?) hyperlexic. I was reading fluently by the time I entered kindergarten and was always 1-2 grade levels ahead in terms of reading level through grade school. I also self-identify as autistic and am pretty sure the criteria on the DSM-V you covered in a different video verifies my non-diagnosis in a way! I absolutely adore your channel!!! Thank you for doing this because I feel as though it’s super important to have fun and informative content about Autism!
A hyperlexic autistic with auditory sensory processing disorder here. :) I think you are absolutely right: I am multilingual (also have a linguistics degree), and as I understand now it has been a huge compensation for my auditory issues. My sound processing is jumbled in the same way how dyslexia jumbles one's letters, making them jump around, disappear and reappear. But with me it happens with sounds, which makes me take longer to process. But at the same time my hyperlexia + special interest in historical linguistics balance that side out :) thanks for your videos!
I "taught myself to read" at 2 1/2 years old. They skipped me ahead. I'm 55 now and I'm considering that I am autistic, because both of my children are on the autism spectrum. My son learned to read at 3 1/2. And I devoured books. My parents wouldn't let me know what I scored on the IQ tests in school. My daughter had difficulty learning to read because I was baffled by phonics too. My son did the same thing! "Firestone" on a sign as we drove, he "read" it! I went to nursing school and I put my notes on note cards and I had 100% recall through my prerequisites and nursing courses. I could close my eyes and see my note cards. My daughter has auditory processing deficiency. Wow. Thank you for connecting A LOT of dots for me! As I get older it's harder for me to "mask" and certain compulsive activities are soothing. Like doing research. Choosing to traverse the rabbit holes is both soothing and intellectually challenging. Explains also why I took etymology as an English elective! Word roots and origins are fascinating! Thanks again for helping me to discover more about myself! 🙏🏻
I am autistic, found out at age 41. I was hyperlexic, too. In fact, I had selective mutism, too. I refused to speak to the other children in my pre-school classes. When my teachers found out I could read well, I was allowed to do the Storytime readings. Reading aloud was pretty much the only time my voice was heard at that time in my life - other than around family, I was comfortable speaking at home. I am a musician and taught myself to read music, too. I don’t ever remember learning to read music. I started piano lessons and just skipped those learn-to-read pages in the books. I also have an auditory processing disorder which has probably been the source of most of my frustrations in life as I look back. The extreme difference between my visual and auditory capabilities is confusing to everyone, including myself. And, auditory processing disorder as a musician is definitely impairing.
I'm not autistic or hyperlexic but I totally relate to what you said about being naturally good at spelling. I didn't speak any English before age 4 and my family immigrated to Canada - I think at that point I was just picking up the language from my environment/daycare/tv the way young children can but my parents were still worried about my English so they hired one of my daycare teachers to tutor me in phonics for a summer and from that my reading/writing level shot up. I remember being very effortlessly above my grade level all through elementary (primary) school. It's so interesting how you described spelling because that's exactly how I felt about it - I could always just tell when a word was spelled correctly or not and could always get 100% on spelling tests in school. But because I was ESL as a child and learned English from phonics/reading (and not from hearing words) I oftentimes pronounced words totally wrong - I once INSISTED island was pronounced phonetically until my first grade teacher had to correct me haha. English is, for all intents and purposes, my first language now, but its so interesting to think back on how language acquisition happened when I was young!
I liked written words because they are primarily a visual thing, and only secondarily an auditory thing. This preference was painfully obvious in a high school English class when we learned about iambic pentameter and had to then write a poem in it. I knew stresses were a property of words, so for every word I wanted to use in my poem, I looked it up in the dictionary to find out which syllables were stressed. This took a lot of time and my poem wasn't very good. It was only much later that I realized stresses on syllables were a property of the words that could be heard when spoken!
This is really interesting - I was several years ahead of others in early primary school, seldom made spelling mistakes and was reading above my level, knew things that I wouldn't be expected to at that age I know from my own experience that showing ability at a young age does not necessarily mean those abilities can be put to any practical use as an adult
Wow this is fascinating! I am waiting on my diagnostic assessment but I've suspected for years that I'm autistic (I'm a 31 yr old female). I had no idea this was related to autism but my mom always tells this story about how when I was two and a half years old I demanded that she buy me "Hooked on Phonics" which was a system for learning to read that I had seen advertised on TV. It's even more interesting to hear some of the differences with the verbal aspects because that is also much harder for me - and I was actually in speech language therapy for in my first year of school despite already reading at a high level. Thanks for all of the valuable information, Sam!
I suspect that I am autistic (I’m still waiting to get evaluated), and I also think that I am hyperlexic. I knew all of the sounds of the alphabet when I was 18 months old, and I was already reading and writing in Spanish by four. I also started learning English as a toddler, and I was pretty much bilingual by six. This video was super interesting! It’s amazing how much I relate to so many things you talk about on this channel.
I dont remember this but my parents have told me that some time before i started school i was suddenly just reading on my own. My guess is that it was because ive always loved reading, and still do, and i was probably eager to read by myself. I started reading YA books early too. Same with adult books. And the same happend with my writing. And it saddens me a little cause it does raise some flags for possible autism and if the school had picked up on that i might have gotten my autism diagnosis much earlier in life then in my mid-20s. I do have a story related to my advanced reading. When i had just started school, this was the first week or so, a girl that was a year older then me was pretending to read a book out loud to us younger kids. I looked at the book and noticed that she wasnt actually reading the text. She just made up the story based on the pictures in the book. And i said out loud “That’s not correct”.
I've just started learning more about the more comprehensive list of autism traits (rather than the stereotypical traits that seem so incredibly wrong now), and the more I think about it, the more I realize that many behaviors now and in my childhood point to it. I'm saying this specifically on your comment because I also am/was a voracious reader, and I feel like finishing an entire adult crime series by the end of second grade should have pointed to something. Heck, I learned how to completely structure a story so I could write a fan fiction about my favorite book series in first grade. It's just very interesting to watch these videos and read comments and relate so much to people who have autism because I have never felt this understood in my life.
Re phonics: if you have difficulty with auditory processing (as you mentioned), I wonder if learning phonics/phonemic awareness would be less useful to you in learning to read, at least at those early phases of reading acquisition. The science of how we learn to read is an area of special interest for me and I could talk about it all day, so thank you for alerting me about a new rabbit hole for me to go down!
I'm also hyperlexic and autistic. At the age of 2 I started to teach myself how to read and was a fluent reader at the age of 4. My father once told me how my primary school teacher said to him how unusual it would be for a first grade student not even being able to read easy words. She thought I couldn't read, but I just didn't talk that much. My father was really surprised by that, at home I was reading all the time. I wonder why they didn't thought of me being autistic, I showed so much signs.
Great vid Sam. Definitely hyperlexic - first year of school was completely strange. Remember those Janet & John books - which I flew through so that I could be the first to play with the train set. I'm very much a visual learner: later in life enjoyed chemistry and biochemistry - I could easily see and recall all those flow charts of chemical interactions etc.
I learned to read by age 3 and I could identify all the states of the USA on a map by age 2. I am self-diagnosed at this point but I have no reason to doubt my own conclusion even though my psychiatrist is blowing me off. Your videos are so encouraging to me, I wish I had more in person support in my city. My marriage is currently falling apart and I don’t have anyone to help me through it. I feel like everyone that is supposed to be helping is standing by waiting for me to implode. And I will soon without help. I have no idea why I’m posting this here I guess I think this is my best bet for finding people who will understand. The late diagnosed autism community feels like the most appropriate place for me. I really want to meet some of you in person. 😢
I’m the complete opposite. Autistic and dyslexic. I didn’t catch up to my peers until 3rd grade (8yo) in reading level. Still to this day it takes me months to finish a book and I cant spell to save my life. Despite this I have always been a huge bookworm. As a child I was able to recite full passages from books verbatim, had an extensive vocabulary, and a special interest in Shakespeare that included reading my favorite scenes out loud to my family on a regular basis. I also reliably score in the 90th percentile or higher on writing and reading comprehension tests. Most recently I scored in the 99th percentile on my graduate school entrance exam (GRE). Just a reminder to anyone that might think that having dyslexia or being slower to learn something means you aren’t as smart as those who pick it up quickly.
I was super excited to see this video! I always told people I taught myself to read, I was reading before kindergarten, my grandma remembers, and I knew things not possible to know. I recently discovered it's a thing called hyperlexia. I'm still trying to find a doctor who can diagnose me with autism spectrum disorder. I also always read really far ahead in class and got in trouble for it. I could not be bothered to slow my reading down for the class, it was painful to do so for me.
I have the same issue with auditory issues. I've had hearing testing on numerous occasions. I think I have sensory processing disorder, as I have a lot of sensory issues.
Your description of how your son is learning reading reminds me a LOT of my experiences teaching ESL to Chinese kids. A lot of parents push them to learning English the way they learn Chinese (drilling memorization of characters) *without* learning phonics first, which leads to a lot of guessing words (similar, but not the same, kind of like how your son guessed "excavator" instead of "extinct" based on how the words look, without necessarily being aware of phonics/blending letter sounds. It's interesting how you mentioned being confused by phonics as a kid, I was hyperlexic as a kid too, but the opposite. I memorized the letter-sounds/phonics (was always very sound-fixated) from an early age, often made/wrote nonsense words with phonics for fun, and learned to read before kindergarten (probably from watching a LOT of sesame street...). Had a very high reading ability as well. However, I found spelling rules VERY confusing/arbitrary, often wrote my letters backwards, and eventually had to take my spelling tests in the SPED room in elementary school after failing so many spelling tests, even after drilling with my mom at home.
I was definitely hyperlexic as a child; I also spoke in complete sentences and carried on conversations with adults around the age of 2. I'm now strongly suspecting that I'm autistic and have ADHD (I haven't been diagnosed). Thank you so much for sharing your insights :)
I don't know a lot about my childhood, I've blocked a lot of it out due to the painful memories associated with it. I have been told that I was very delayed in speaking, but I do speak 3 languages and have worked as a translator/proof reader for many years. So maybe there's some merit in this theory of language proficiency. Also, I don't think I mask as such, but I have learned strategies to socialise better. Most people say now that they would never tell I'm autistic.
I don't know whether I would qualify as hyperlexic but was definitly a very early reader, and process written information much faster than spoken. I also have had my hearing tested multiple times because my auditory processing is so slow. Only realised a few months ago (after watchng one of your videos) that I am probably autistic and this explains a lot.
mazziemarie Not responding to my name to the register. My mum tell me I did that. I did I like it? absolutely not. I felt like a kid with a broken brain at school. There were times at junior school I walked around the playground like a zombie because I forgot to organise the play time or the events. But after school was normal child behaviour I go round kids houses. But secondary school that stop. I see no friends outside of school that wasn't normal. But I didn't feel like it wasn't normal at the time, Attwood say in this aspergers lecture. Junior school manageable. Secondary school wheel some off. Yes my experience, but my tires where rubbing to canvass up to end of junior school. Then the wheel fell off in secondary school to use the metaphor. To be brutally honest with myself.
I'm autistic and based on your video probably hyperlexic. I taught myself to read on the many tomes of my grandma's Encyclopedia Universalis which I ADORED. I started reading middle grade books around age 5 and at age 7-8 I was starting to read YA. I couldn't understand children's books mediocre content and I was baffled by all the kids my age reading them. Like you I had all my autistic traits attributed to a high IQ! But at the same time, I was classified as having an average to low development of spoken language, and had speaking issues up until age 8-9 (with many prononciation difficulties). I'm now a linguist (working on a PhD), a librarian, and have studied the grammar of 10+ languages, including ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian! When I was finally diagnosed with autism, this all finally made sense but I remember it being so confusing as a child. What I liked the most was when you spoke about reading your videos and not making words on the spot: I'm exactly the same!!! People think I'm so bright and well spoken when I teach or make a video etc, when actually I'm more or less reading my (very good) notes but can't improvise consistent sentences to save my life. I never thought this could be related to hyperlaxia and autism, but thanks to you, I realise it definitely could be. *Ps: English is not my first language at all though I teach in English) *Pps: my ears were also regularly tested because I never answered right away (to this day I still need people to repeat at least twice to realise I'm being spoken to). This was ultimately attributed to very bad behaviour and everyone treated me like this naughty kid who didn't care about anything. When in truth I just hadn't heard them at all.
I'm 49, discovered I am autistic very recently and today learned hyperlexia exists and perfectly describes my experience. I had no idea before today that anyone else did every single thing you described.
My daughter was hyperlexic and would correct our Grammer at 1 Yr and could read fluently by 3. We learned of this new skill in a funny way. While on a crowded bus in Vancouver, BC, she sweetly looked at the advertisements above us and says in her loudest clearest voice "what is erectile dysfunction? And why would we need to talk to our Dr about it?" the passengers snickered as we told her that we would talk about it at home. She decided to look it up on her desktop encyclopedia as soon as we got home and proudly announced all she discovered about the issue via Google.
This reminds me of one of my mom's favorite stories about me. We were at a harvest festival and I started reading signs people had posted at their stalls. Since I had just started school for the first time a few weeks earlier I must have been teaching myself to read for a while beforehand. My mom is one of the least observant people ever so this shocked her and she talks about it all the time now as one of the first times she realized how unpredictable I am to her.
This definitely seems to be what my little boy has. He started reading at the age of two. He’s 3y 4m and currently being assessed for asd. His understanding of how to read seemed to come out of nowhere and he has now memorised both the English and Russian alphabet, despite the fact there is absolutely no Russian in the family! He has also taught himself to count in German, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese. He just seems to memorise words so quickly! Thanks for the video, it really helps me understand him.
This is so interesting. My early education experience was quite different. lol I couldn't really read until 3rd grade (I was nearly held back), then in the span of a few months I jumped to chapter books. I guess it took a while for something to click. Once I could read, I quickly began reading (then writing) many grade levels ahead, but my spelling was always *horrific*. My vocabulary was truly impressive, but I couldn't spell any of it. lol By age 15 my 9 yo sister could spell circles around me. It wasn't until half way through college I was diagnosed with a learning disability (LD-NOS) with significant elements of dyslexia and a few other things thrown in. It would take 4 years after the LD diagnosis to get the ASD diagnosis (technically PDD-NOS), and then everything started to make sense...lol
HAlC11235 Persuasive development disorder- non otherwise specified. For those who heard of old DSM4 before 2013. No one asking for PDD NOS back they are asking for Asperger's syndrome. That's because PDD-NOS was a shit criteria. Sorry for having a go at your past diagnoses. But it so difficult for professionals to tell the difference it in between aspergers and high functioning. But reading from Attwood book on the problems with the old DSM4 it was hard to tell the difference between between high functioning autism and Asperger's syndrome. Then having PDD-NOS was a vague description between to HFA and AS. In this aspergers documentary by formerly Alyssa Huber now Luisha nerodivergrnt I think. There was a man with PDD NOS he was on the aspergers documentary. Because PDD NOS is basically aspergers.
I'm pretty sure I'm hyperlexic, my mum often talks about how I was recognising brands/brand names as a very young child, and I remember in reception being given more advanced spellings to learn (and learning them like *that*), being given extra grammar exercises to do in the next couple of years, taking the year 6 literacy SATs in year 2 (and doing well on them). I also can't even remember ever reading books that only had a couple of words on the page and I was reading the first Harry Potter book either by the summer before year 1 (5 years old) or before year 2 (6 years old). It's also interesting what you said about language learning and speaking/scripting, ever since I started learning other languages I got it really quickly, I just find it easy to make the connections and see the logic and understand how it works (at least in languages with a latin alphabet!). Up to GCSE my speaking results were also very good because you could basically write down everything you were going to say, i.e. scripting, and memorise it (which I was also very good at...I don't know if I have a photographic memory exactly but after a few times reading something through I could see the next word/sentence in my head), which meant I got high marks on speaking tests too. Which made it surprising when I got to A Level, where you actually have to talk off the cuff, and got a D in my Spanish speaking test (my Spanish teacher actually suggested/I think referred me to the special education unit or similar of my sixth form to get tested - I think he suggested dyspraxia but I'm not sure how that's related to difficulty speaking? - because of this, but he advised that I'd probably need to chase them up to get an answer and I never did haha). That's been a pattern ever since, even doing languages at university I'd only ever get average to poor marks, although I did pass...my second year Spanish just barely though...and my year abroad didn't help with this very much (for many reasons, my mental health was abysmal on my YA and it was the trigger to me starting to consider if I was ND), what did help with my German was working at a call centre (yes I know) because most of the issues were the same/very similar so I could more or less have scripted answers of what to say. I would be really interested in hearing Sam's take on language-learning/living abroad etc as an autistic person, I have a lot of thoughts on it (especially as a language student about the inaccessibility to some/possibly many autistic/ND people (certainly me!) of the compulsory year abroad for the vast majority of UK students doing language degrees). (random aside but I also feel like my language-learning has affected my spelling for the worse! I've always been good at spelling - like Sam said, words just look right or wrong - but I think having similar words in other languages that are spelled slightly differently has affected that somewhat).
I have not been diagnosed with either, but I am pretty sure I have both. (I am hoping to start the diagnosis process for Autism after I move this summer.) I was reading by age 4 (maybe earlier) and I always read at really high levels compared to my peers. I constantly read and I think that helped me figure out how to interact with people. I was often just called really shy and quiet because I would observe new people before interacting. I am much better at reading than speaking/listening (which remained true when I learned Persian Farsi) Verbal instructions are difficult for me and I also have a delay and say “what” when people talk to me sometimes and then it clicks before they even repeat themselves. I really appreciate your videos because although I am not officially diagnosed as Autistic, I feel like I’m finally starting to understand myself. I’m finally realizing that I am not just “weird” but my brain just processes things differently.
OMG this explains so much! I'm autistic, have ADHD and am hyperlexic (didn't know that was a thing until now!). Was reading books at four already, and always was very good with language and spelling. I'm proofreading my professor's papers because I catch errors others don't. As you say - the word just looks right, or else it looks wrong. Also, what you say about etymologising is exactly how I deal with words! *feels oddly happy now* Yay I am not a freak!
I relate to this soooo much. I was diagnosed hyperlexic (though only in adulthood)and my parents didn't report me as being an early reader. In fact, they say I struggled to learn in the same way as my sister and brother. However, I absolutely LOVE languages with a passion, especially grammar! I have learnt and am able to read many languages, and also speak a few. But, like you, I really struggle with auditory processing and because of that I have no interesting in listening to languages and everything I do is through reading. Due to my auditory processing difficulties I have been unable to keep up in lectures at university and prefer to learn visually.
Luna Aspie I find languages fascinating too. I learned French and Latin at school and after that was able to read and get the gist of Italian without ever learning any. I wish someone had picked up on my language abilities at a young age because I could have gone far with it and made a career out of it. My life didn’t go that way though.
@@tracik1277 I am the same with Germanic languages. I learnt German but can also read Dutch and Scandinavian languages. I would have loved to make a career out of my language ability but because I struggle with auditory processing and other aspects it was not possible. I still love to learn languages and have recently been learning Polish and Korean!
This is so interesting! I'd never heard of this before but it makes so much sense for me. I was reading extremely young and I couldn't stop - to the point that it became distressing/overstimulating. I would close my eyes on car trips because if I was looking out the window I couldn't help but read every single sign and number plate we would go past, the words were a cacophony in my head!
I'm autistic and hyperlexic. My daughter is also hyperlexic (no asd diagnosis as of yet), but she hates to read and it makes me so sad! ETA: not sad because I think it's 'bad' that she doesn't like to read, more because reading brings me so much joy, and I'd love for her to experience that too.
This is fascinating. I learned to read at 18 months; I have no memory of not being able to read. My mother says the teacher taught her to read on her first day of school (which, I'm guessing, meant she already could). I got in trouble in school for jumping ahead of the instruction in the physical mechanics of writing. This is the first I've heard this term!
4 года назад
It is interesting to hear an autistic mom being very analytic towards her kid. I am looking forward to hear more about your kid development. I don't really know if I am autistic or not, but I did have hyperlexia and my husband is a autistic man with a very high IQ, so we are very likely to have an autistic kid as well and I would like to be (actually feel) a bit more "ready" when the time comes. Thank you for the insightful video.
Wow, you sound a lot like me! I learned to read when I was still in a high chair, according to my parents and grandparents. I’m good at spelling, grammar, and other languages, but not good at speaking spontaneously. I was diagnosed with ADD at age 8, but I think I may also be autistic. Your videos are really helping me feel not so alone!
I'm not sure when I learned to read, but I remember my reading and spelling age always being many years above everybody else. I would always score close to 100% on any reading tests. I've also always had trouble "hearing" - I've always described myself as having hearing problems but being sensitive to sound at the same time. Autistic sensory issues plus auditory processing issues makes total sense! This may also be why I really love to have subtitles on the TV. My family always took the mick out of me for it, but having the subtitles there helps me quickly understand what people are saying, whereas without them I am often a bit behind and struggle to follow the conversations. My husband is happy to have them on, so... it's normal in our house, now. I'm a visual learner without much of a "mind's eye". My spelling is pretty spot-on, but if you ask me how to spell a word, I have to write it down. Thank you, Sam. Yet again, you have given me an epiphany, another "ohhh so THAT'S why I do xyz" moment. I've got lots of info to bring with me to my assessment, which will be scheduled soon! :D
You're hyperlexic story is very similar to mine, including a hyperlexic child. I never really felt well in my life and after three therapies I got diagnosed at the age of 53!! Autism was my idea, I myself initiated the diagnosis. So basically saying: I am a perfect example of your theory for that third group.
Oh man. I was reading before kindergarten and when I was 2 years I would drive my mom crazy making her read the Dr Seuss ABCs book to me. I don't need this right now.
I'm hyperlexic and autistic. I started speaking in full sentences at 18 months old and actually got kicked out of a day care for biting the other kids because they wouldn't talk to me. Of course it never occurred to my 2 year old brain that they COULDN'T talk. I had read the first 5 Harry Potter books by the time I was 6. In second grade I tested at a sixth grade reading level, in fourth grade I tested at a tenth grade reading level and in sixth grade I tested at a college reading level. I've never had problems with reading, reading comprehension, writing or speaking fluently but I have problems pronouncing things correctly and processing auditory information. In school I've always had to have someone take notes for me because I can't process what the teacher is saying fast enough to write it down without falling behind. Honestly despite having a few problems here and there I DO consider my hyperlexia a super power. I LOVE to read, every book is another world to explore and most of them are a lot more fun than this one. I get lost in the pages, my mind weaves elaborate pictures for every sentence which is why I'd rather read a book than watch a movie any day. I read an average of 3 to 5 books a week, yes really. When I was a kid the local library had a contest to see who could read the most books over the summer, I don't think I lost once the entire 6 years I lived there. I also love writing, creating my own worlds to share with people. A lot of what I write is rather disturbing though which is why I haven't published yet. Anyway I don't think hyperlexia is a disorder, I really do think it's a gift, I've gotten much more good from it than bad.
I'm hyperlexic and autistic. I started reading by the age of 3 and it was basically how you are describing your son's reading growth. I grew very attached to a book until I could read it myself and my parents originally assumed I had memorized it, but then I started recognizing words in other places!
Wow I didn't know hyperlexia was a thing.. But I definitely regocnize it in myself! I could read before I started school (at age 4) and I've always been super into written language as well. I was diagnosed with autism at age 19. Really interesting to see that there's some kind of connection between autism and hyperlexia beyond just 'being smart'.
I don’t think I started reading early but I can definitely relate to what you said about how it’s easier for you to form your thoughts through writing than it is for you to form thoughts through speaking. I’m the same way! Also I’m pretty sure I have auditory processing disorder too.
That's same for me too. I even had to go to speech therapy when I was a child and I still have trouble pronouncing certain things now. Though I could read at an early age as well.
I am type 3 hyperlexic, although you made a good point there about learning to mask. Because really it do be like that. Most people who know me, except for those who know me *really* well, would be surprised to find that I have social difficulties or even that I'm introverted by nature. I've apparently learned to mask really well, but it also means that social interactions tire me out *really* quickly. Another thing that comes with all of this, I'm realising now, is my fairly intense anxiety at phone calls. I really struggle with phone calls, and web calls where I can't see the person I'm talking to. There's just not enough information that I can easily process, and my mind ends up hyperfocusing and tiring itself out really quickly so I lose track of the conversation. Another odd negative for me is that I struggle quite fundamentally with understanding implicature in-situ. Not necessarily because I can't grasp what's being implied, but usually because I either don't notice that something's being implied (being too literal-minded) or because I see too many potential implications and can't pick out the one that's intended. This leads to frustration in my personal life when, for example, my fiancé - who is dyslexic - points at something and expects me to pick up from social cues and context what she means, or substitutes "the thing" etc for what she's actually talking about. Things most neurotypical people would have absolutely no problem with, but just completely blocks my understanding of what the hell is even going on.
This sounds a lot like me. I'm sure I was reading before I started going to nursery. I used to annoy my parents because on car journeys, I would read all the text I saw - aloud. I too didn't really understand phonics, and I would work out new words in blocks like you said. I do this when I'm learning foreign languages today. Even now I'm 18, I discover English words that I must have long misunderstood because I wasn't aware of the deeper semantics. I love languages, so much so that I'm going to uni to do linguistics in September. As you say, the ability and enjoyment of pattern recognition certainly plays a role in my interest for the subject. Somewhat counterintuitively, I recently began to receive extra time in exams and use coloured filters for reading. This was because I was diagnosed with scotopic sensitivity syndrome (which I'm sure must an autistic sensory difficulty). It makes it difficult for me to read from white paper; the space between the words shimmers and overwhelms the words, and it slows my reading down. Thank you for another interesting video.
Like OMG. I'm 29 and have never in my life thought about having autism... Until now. This whole story is about me. The more I read the comments below the video, the more it's all about me.
All of this is SO me. I taught myself how to read at the age of 4 by repeatedly listening to and following along with the Disney Heffalump book and cassette tape. Then I graduated myself to higher and higher reading level books from the public library until by the age of 9 I was reading books from the adults' section (my mother had to give special permission to the librarian for me to check out books from that section LOL). I also played on a Speak And Spell which taught me whether a word's spelling "looked right". Phonics was a nightmare for me which to this day I can't understand. I eventually became a Harlequin Teen author and a book editor for multiple publishers for decades until I "retired" a few years ago because I needed a change to more visually creative work. I too have hyper sensitive hearing (I can tell what type of product is being touched by someone else inside the kitchen cabinets, whether it was sunglasses or some other object that just fell between the car door and seat, etc.). But when I hear speech, it takes me a delay to process what was just said and what the intended meaning of those words is. Sometimes I even have to ask the person to reword what they said so I can understand them, even though they're speaking in perfectly understandable English and English is my primary language. This has been getting steadily worse over the last few years to the point that talking with others is now a struggle. Choosing words for me to speak is even harder and I really struggle with aphasia.
This is so interesting to me. My daughter (ADHD possibly asd) is 3 and is reading. I was speaking in full sentences at 9 months old and also reading at 3 and also neurodivergent. Makes a lot of sense that her and I both would love words.
the thing about saying "what?" is also SO TRUE for me. like, i heard what they said, i just ask "what" to have a little more time to respond. i always just thought of it as, idk, a quirk i made up and then just kept repeating for no reason, but hm. now that you've mentioned it, it might indeed have something more to then just "no reason".
Yes, needing that extra second to internalize what they said the first time, I GET THAT! Instead of an awkward silent pause while you're taking things in, you force the other person to talk over the silence so that it's not awkward.
Well this was an eye opener. I didn’t even realise it was a thing. I have always had good reading skills but don’t really recall how early I was reading. Now though, my little boy is two, and is fascinated with letters. He loves his alphabet set and definitely recognises certain letters, and has done for a few months I think.
I didnt learn how to read until I was 5 and mom took me out of school to homeschool and teach me. Apparently I was so bored with the material in school i zoned out and caused disruptions. But afterwards I picked up reading and became very advanced. I was holding full conversations with adults around 1 1/2 -2 years old to which an education professional once told my mom to teach me how to read then, but she refused. Nevertheless, all of my earliest memories revolve me being OBSESSED with languages and words. I was trying to learn and thoroughly mimicking Spanish on my own before I could read. We're still not sure what gave me inclination to do so since I wasn't raise in a Spanish speaking household. I used to scribble in attempts to write and once I learned writing filled up all my notebooks with stories. To this day I've grown a language obsession with Spanish, Russian and Korean and most of my high school and college notes are taken in a mixture of the 3.. My native language is English.
I'm Autistic and Dyslexic, but I also had an advanced reading age- just not out loud. I can read something and pick out the ideas (and memorize them) really quickly but I struggle to read out loud word for word, although Tinted glasses helped. I also have really advanced verbal language and vocabulary, always have done. However I really struggled with spelling and writing, also forming sentences is really hard. I can look at a word and know if It's spelt wrong but not know how to fix it which is really frustrating. Ahh like the word spelt, the past tense of to spell ahh. I read by memorizing the shape of the word rather than individual letters. I also really struggle with comprehension, I hate it. So I would disagree that Hyperlexia is the opposite of dyslexia, as I seem to have both.
I've been really looking forward to this as a (currently) undiagnosed autistic woman who was comfortably reading at writing by 3 (our childhood handwriting actually looks remarkably similar!). I also grew up bilingual English-Welsh and picked up other languages easily, although I never understood why this was a big deal as it was effortless on my part and I felt a bit of a fraud. So many things here I can relate to and what you said about traits going under the radar because we were 'intelligent' (see also: obedient, polite...) meant other traits got explained away, only to be unpicked 20-30 years later... A trade-off for me has been in my numerical processing skills. I really struggle here and suspect I have discalculia (which, incidentally, is more common in female autistics compared with males). Things like substraction, working out change, processing clock-faces are all a bit exhausting for me. I've got strategies but they all take up a lot more effort (especially with synaesthesia thrown in for Extra Fun). Curious to know if this is something you/your followers experience? But yeah, loved this. Could have written it about myself 😊 Thanks!
Ohhh I'm absolutely hyperlexic and autistic. I was reading around age 4, well before starting school. I always thought it was because I was impatient with having to wait around for my parents to read to me. I studied linguistics at university, speak French (well I've lost a lot of it), learnt Hindi from watching Bollywood movies to the point where I could communicate with people in India when I went there and was also studying Russian. Language has always been one of my passions.
When you mentioned the scenario of saying “what?” And the person starts to repeat themselves and then you’re like “Oh yeah I already heard you” it resonated with me so much. I was diagnosed on 1st April and I’ve done that my whole life. It’s like saying “what?” Or “sorry” is buying time for it to sink in rather than blankly staring while I work out what they said. I always knew that was the case, but people are more receptive to thinking you didn’t hear them than you trying to explain that the information didn’t go in. With the latter, you can be labelled stupid or slow. I was tested as a kid SO MANY TIMES for hearing problems - perfect hearing.
Yeah it really makes you think you're going crazy when you "can't hear" but the hearing tests come back fine. I don't know how well known auditory processing issues were when I was younger, but I hope they are more widely recognised now.
Yo Samdy Sam I would hope so too! I am roughly the same age as you and i never knew it was a thing. I still experience it now and my hearing is confirmed over and over as being perfectly fine. I actually hear sounds others do not, too - like stuff that makes no sense when you try to explain to NTs. “What do you mean you can hear the WiFi router and the bulb in the lamp?”😅
The NT experience of the world must be so quiet! 😅
Yes, having your hearing constantly tested determining it is auditory processing delay due to a disability of intellect vs the disability of audio filtering. Suddenly with earphones taking away background noise, etc... oh look... they are fine intellectually no learning disability for the IEP. While totally missing the point eliminating background noise is CRITICAL. Oh well, the ignorance of the typical. Whatcha gonna do🙅🙅🙅. Sorry watching my boys with exceptional hearing that was disabling in certain environments be treated like they were dunces was just so annoying lol. What is the goal here education system ?? Is it teaching the ability to learn in the environment of the classroom or is the goal learning the subject in the best way possible for the child? When they don’t allow noise canceling headphones or a pullout in a sound reducing room yet they can. Argh
I have a problem with people repeating things to me even though they know I heard them. This could happen days later and it is quite strenuous to pay attention to someone when you feel like they are treating you like your stupid or dont listen. It can feel abusive. Alot of the time they do it to try and get a reaction. Another problem i find is getting bogged down in what a person said and trying to process it as they are still speaking. Sometimes people use elaborate sentences to try and seem smart what they could have easily been explained in fewer words. Then I have to declutter what they have said to get the information. I was the kid staring out the window at the Jacaranda tree. I could read already when i started school, and i realise now that it didnt really matter what size the words were. Some other kids would struggle because the word was large. I was also tested for hearing problems. I think its funny when your told you dont listen but can sing in tune and play music by ear.
@@RachaelStephanie Yeah, I totally identify myself with that. For me was with the old TV. When they were on, even if black and nothing on them I can hear a high pitch from 2 rooms away. And me coming to my parents and saying.. I think you left the TV on. 😅. I also do the "what?" thing all the time. Is like I need to mentaly visualize what someone sais, and takes too much time. Great video Yo Samdy Sam :)
I totally get a word looking “right” or “wrong”. If I have trouble spelling something that someone asks me to, I write it down and voila! I know the answer.
that's how i do it too!
I can type words without thinking about it, but when I have to write out a word but hand, I will write out the wrong spelling. I will know it's wrong but sometimes I just have to keep guessing until I stumble upon the right one
me too...and a MUCH HARDER time spelling it aloud?!?!?!
Especially in English! Probably because there are so many words that sound just about or exactly the same, but have different spellings and meanings.
Same!
My aspie daughter started to read at age 3. I explained phonics to her and she was off. She was reading to her brother who is 2 years older. When she went to school I told her teacher that she could read. Her teacher wanted to know who taught her.
She is 46 now and has had a lifelong enjoyment of books and reading.
Hi there! My 3 year old is showing the same signs. She didn’t talk till she was two. Now at three she is saying 1-2 words and sometimes a sentence, but she loves ABCs and can read books. What was your daughters experience with language and socializing as a toddler and child?
@@sarahgumball8597
My daughter is 48 now.
I didn't know that she was on the autism spectrum when she was a child.
She seemed to be a very intelligent... slightly hyperactive child to me.
It was in adulthood that we realized that she and I are not neurotypical.
She graduated college.
As an adult, she lives independently...
Today, she has a very intense techy job, is introverted, and is emotionally on the level of a 15 year old.
She loves animals.
She has never dated.
She has friends that are Aspies.
@@sarahgumball8597 Hello! My 3 year old is also on the spectrum, she didn't speak much either till she was two. After a whole year of speech therapy, she can now speak in 4-5 word sentences. I noticed her ability to read once her speech improved, she can spell her name and can read 2-3 word phrases. She's had a love for the ABCs and numbers since she was a baby. She's now working on her tracing skills and has almost mastered it!
I didn’t have a lifelong love of reading, but I did teach myself from age 2 or so. In preschool this interest began fading as teachers barked at me to write a letter on a white board before I could sit at circle time as the reward. I was annoyed and stopped enjoying it
I am hyperlexic and autistic. I taught myself how to read at an early age (3 to 4) and therefor was really bored in the first years of school. Other kids hated grammar lessons, but I loved grammar in school and the German language has a lot of rules.
I also definitely struggled with auditory learning, which was why I struggled to learn English initially. That was until I started to read English books obsessively which was when I started to improve rapidly. Because of my auditory processing problems, I actually didn’t like learning new languages for a long time. Now I’m starting to think, that I might just have to learn languages differently...
Thanks for the interesting topic, Sam.
Draconika I had a really similar experience, except I started reading VERY young. I actually skipped a grade because of my reading capabilities. It really sucked, I couldn’t make any friendships.
Früher in der Grundschule fand ich die Grammatik immer ziemlich langweilig, es war mir halt alles klar und ich hatte keine Ahnung, warum die anderen Kinder aus meiner Klasse damit solche Probleme hatten. Später war Grammatik dann auch mein Lieblingsthema im Deutschunterricht und mein Deutschlehrer war regelmäßig verzweifelt, wie ich es schaffe, in Grammatik und Rechtschreibung absolut fehlerfrei zu sein, bei den Interpretationen und freien Texten aber regelmäßig zu versagen. Auch heute noch sitze ich in Deutsch immer ahnungslos vor den Texten und muss die Sätze bei höchster Konzentration mehrmals lesen, bis alles bei mir angekommen ist und dann habe ich ja noch nicht mal den Inhalt verstanden.
Can totally agree with your entry. Thanks for sharing.
@@blueberrymuffin_144 I had the same experience! Skipped a grade as well and difficulty forming friendships. Mainly 1 at a time. I "taught myself to read" at 2 1/2 is what my parents told me.
Hi. I've noticed your message. I also have auditory processing disorder(APD), which is one of the comorbidities of ADHD/ASD. Anyway, I am hyperlexic, but my story is a bit different, because I live in another country, and the school rules are a bit different here. I started reading fluently at the age of five, and my first novel at the age of 8-9. Anyway, after that, I've been impressed by other languages, and my mom taught me the basic rules of reading Russian, and I was able to read a short prayer in the back of a picture. And later I began curious about reading in greek. In highschool, we needed to study Cyrillic old texts and practice reading. To be fair, I was the best in my class, and next to me was a teenager who learned the Russian alphabet(the Cyrillic alphabet is similar to the Russian alphabet). Meanwhile, I've began interested in reading about new things only in English. I was obssessed with English, and I need to say this: I was not able to hear anything, or understand what they were saying. So, I applying this technique. Read with the captions below. It helped me overcome my auditory difficulties, and learned that it is only part of the brain that is weaker than average. So, keep trying and don't stop until you have mastered a new language!
My son was 2.
We were at a restaurant and he wrote the words brown, red, green, yellow, in the same colour crayons.
My father in law nearly fell on his back.
This was something to be proud of not listed as a dysfunction.
my brother was speaking full sentences as a baby. i, apparently, spontaneously learned to read at 4 years old (thank you richard scarry and my parents tirelessly reading the books for me!) but i already knew how to write my own name and other words at three. my mom says i was on the floor with a newspaper and suddenly just exclaimed i could read. i don't remember that moment myself, but i have vivid memories from that age and before, mostly negative or unfair situations, but also some happy sensory and visual moments (thunderstorm, looking up at a sky full of stars on a very cold night, summer day under the laundry line with my kitten etc).
we start school at age seven so i was way ahead and very frustrated during the first years. we have subtitles on tv and movies, so i also became bilingual (finnish/english) on my own. i'm good with languages in general and quickly catch on to grammar, but listening comprehension is definitely my pitfall. i'm studying japanese currently and it's my goal to make it my third fluent language, but it's so much harder at forty than four!
i absolutely have an alert inner grammar nazi, which is fortunately kept in check by my more compassionate qualities. i spot mistakes in text without trying. and yes, i am autistic.
hope learning japanese goes well for you! i found the phonetic alphabet pretty easy to read after the initial learning curve of actually memorizing the symbols. theres a lot of juicy linguistics history to the language as well which i enjoy :)
I love Where's Wally (or Waldo), and I love catching spelling mistakes in professional writings. Always a good laugh. My boyfriend has poor grammar however, which annoys the heck out of me. For example: "You was there." I'm like "No, it's 'You WERE there.'" My punctuation isn't great though. 😂
Yes, me too and my son. Both of us "spontaneously" could read. They skipped me ahead in school. I'm 55 and he's 30. He is diagnosed with Asperger's. I am not but I am very suspicious that I would fall into the "higher functioning" autism spectrum too.
I learned to read at age two, and have loved it ever since. When I was young, my preschool teacher called my mother in for a conference because I "had a discipline problem". The problem was that I "was pretending I could read", and would look at a book I brought rather than pay attention during reading lessons. My mother told her that I could in fact read, and would read to my younger sister every night. Despite this, the teacher insisted there was no way I could read. Eventually my mum picked a random magazine from the teacher's desk and had me read an article out loud. The teacher was still convinced that I couldn't read, and insisted I had memorized the article.
This happened to us
ARGH haha
i'm autistic and hyperlexic! the huge confusion about phonics resonates with me a lot, though it was always seen to others as "thinking you're better than everyone else" and being snooty... i used to really puzzle my teachers, even in the last year of primary school when i was the best reader and writer in the class by far, but my spelling was terrible; i just couldn't process the words they were saying into the words they mean and then how to spell that all before they had moved on to the next word! even now when people spell a word out loud to me it's just A Sound rather that actually registering the sounds as letters
I am autistic and hyperlexic, I finally realize now why I find Spanish listening tests so hard! It goes to fast for me to process.
I learnt to read when I was 2-3 years old, and I've always loved reading since. I also found phonics really hard to understand!
What you ate mentiioning there is probably also the hardest thing for most people when learning languages. But there are ways to train this.
yea i cant stop reading
Spanish is spoken at about 8 syllables per second and English at about 6 syllables per second. I have exactly the same problem with listening tests in foreign languages.
I understood the phonics but didn’t really need them to learn to read
I'm speak Spanish natively and I can cornfirm that Spanish is the second fastest langauge in the world behind Japanese
My mom has always told me I learned to read super early, and I have always always always been a fast reader who reads far above my peers' so-called "levels" (I always thought those were stupid anyway but I digress) and the stuff you say about finding it easier to understand when I'm processing visually (instead of through auditory means) resonates sO MUCH. I cannot - simply cannot - remember something if I do not know how it is spelled. Names, new words, what I need at the grocery store... If I can picture the spelling in my head (and know for sure that's how it's spelled) then I can remember it for pretty much as long as I need to. I've got a mind for dates, phone numbers, names, and phrases from real life or television but /only/ when I can spell them. I'm investigating if autism could be a diagnosis for me, and this honestly is one of the major ones (also masking and sensory sensitivity), thank you so much for sharing!
I need people to get my attention first when speaking to me. If they just start saying something to me when I'm busy with something else it's like my speech recognition just takes a bit to wake up and figure out where each word begins and ends, and then it works correctly after that. But sometimes it just sounds like gibberish the first second or so and it's so weird
Judging from that I would say, you are male. Are you really?
Same :p to me it sounds like "What ______ you ______ to _____ later? " My brain just catches parts and discards the rest. I think this is hyperfocus from ADHD. It takes a while to switch out of it and re-position the targeting crosshair. :P
@@Octopussyist can you explain what that means?
@@EJtheEJsEJ What?
@@Octopussyist for example, why do you think they are male?
i am hyperlexic and 4utisti(, and just wanted to say... every single thing you mentioned having had in this video, i experienced and experience EXACTLY the same! watching your channel is so validating :)
I’ve recently realized that I may be autistic, and knowing that I had hyperlexia and selective mutism at age 3 makes a world of sense now. I’m also hard of hearing so that makes life fun.
I haven’t been diagnosed as hyperlexic, but what you described sounds like me. I could read before I was in school ( I also figured out how multiplication worked before school, although I never quite was good at doing it practically), and I have always been fascinated by language, etymology, etc. I also self-identify as autistic, starting less than a year ago after an online acquaintance from the U.K. started sharing about her (official, medical) diagnosis. I am 56 and live in the US, so I doubt I will be able to afford an actual diagnosis (I’m also unemployed and have no healthcare insurance). I really appreciate your channel and the feeling that I get from learning more about autism in adults, especially women. Thank you so much, Sam!
So much of this resonated with me. I was reading by age 3. I taught myself, I suppose (with help from an amazing caregiver) because I didn’t understand well from being read to. In first grade (I’m in the US), I was placed in third-grade reading, and that “step-up” continued throughout primary school.
And I’ve asked, “What?” all my life, despite numerous hearing tests that said my hearing was great. By the time I had finished asking, though, I had processed what was said. I finally realized (five decades later) that it’s an auditory processing issue.
This video is life-changing to me, to realize I’m not as “weird” (in one way, at least) as I thought-that others had/have similar experiences. Thank you!!!
I neglected to say: adult-diagnosed autistic (well, adult self-identified autistic)
Wow! Yet another piece of the puzzle for me. One of my earlier school memories was my parents being called into my 1/2 day kindergarten class to meet with the teacher and administrators. Apparently, while the rest of the class was learning A-B-C, I was writing the entire alphabet backwards (mirror image) and they thought I was "slow". My parents laughed and said, "she just likes to hold it up to the mirror." Like you, it wasn't interpreted as anything much except high intelligence, which is why I was allowed to order a 1000 page book (Gone With The Wind) in third grade, from Scholastic, and finished it in three days.
Also, I have scripts for EVERYTHING in my adult life. I have such a hard time with ad libbing business conversations. I always write down key talking points and answers I think I will need. INCLUDING my own work telephone number & address, in case I have to say it on an answering machine.
You're great! And I'm loving these informative videos. I'm learning so much about myself and it's made me feel very much comfortable in my own skin for the first time in 45 years. Keep it up!
I have been down the autism self-discovery track for years, but only tonight came across hyperlexia through an autistic youtuber, which led the algoritms to introduce your video. I am currently mindblown because the way YOU desbribe this is me, my childhood experience AND my daughter with astonishing accuracy! EVERYTHING you just said fits 100%. That is rare. I feel just as struck by lightning as when I found a label for my synesthesia half a lifetime ago ❤ Fantasic, thank you!
okay, this is crazy... literally everything i've seen you say resonates with my life?? i've learned to read by myself at 3, to write at 4 (in portuguese). learned english by myself at about 9, 10. both of those because i had wanted to read harry potter, since i was obsessed with it. so, i was reading HP in portuguese at 4/5 years old, and in english at 9/10. dude, the thing about the word just looking weird, like. YES. i really have always thought i was the only one. everyone when i was 3 just thought i had remembered them, but no, i had learned them after getting obcessed with some words around the city/house and just really not being able to focus until i found out how they sounded and what they meant.
My mother told me that at age 3 i could read but she didn't know how i learned lol. At that time, we had a game: I was reading everything at the street and say it to her, and i did this a lot in my childhood because it mades me relax.
Between 3 and 5 years old i read but i read more the same books, like an astronomy one for kids.
Also my kinder teacher (3 years old) told to my mother that "i talked like a teacher". My mother thinks thats why i never connected a lot with my peers.
(Sorry for my english, it's not my first language)
I am autistic, hyperlexic and have an auditory processing disorder. I had no idea the 3 concepts were related. My son and my grandson are also the same. My son was reading by age 2 and reading chapter books by age 4. He started by reading cereal boxes including the ingredient list. He was diagnosed with severe ADHD by age 4 yet skipped up to 7 grades by what should have been grade 5. His son is reading and spelling everything he can get his hands on. His latest obsession is creating letters with LEGO and spelling out words with them.
I absolutely love your videos because I can so strongly relate to them. I have thought my whole life that in some ways I was just strange and didn’t fit in (why was no one else obsessed with astronomy and weather) and in other ways that everyone else must also struggle with the same things I do. Your videos explain so much. My son and his wife love watching them too. Keep it up.
Hi Sam! I'm hyperlexic and autistic, too. I also have the same issue with audio processing. It's especially difficult for me to process spoken language when I am in a space that has lots of competing ambient noise. I hear SO well that I hear everything, all at once, and it's just so dang cacophonous that I cannot "hear" what is being said to me. Really what I can't do is making meaning of that particular group of sounds in relation to all the other sounds that are coming in at essentially the same volume. Gotta love dem ear plugs! YES. Thank you for your videos!
Long before kindergarten, I remember secretly reading “The Littlest Angel,” but telling no one because I was afraid that grownups would stop reading to me if they knew I could read.
I knew my letters before i went to school, and I remember, when I was three, my brother was born and his name is Matthew. At three, I was fascinated, because of the spelling, "M-A-T-T-H-E-W," double T and W double U, and M is an upside down W. I am fascinated by words, too. I can speak English, Japanese, a bit of Chinese, I remember "Silent Night," in German, a bit of French, and a few words in Arabic.
Undiagnosed autism, 32, just watched one of your vids a few weeks ago, and everything… my whole life makes sense. Autism literally explains the majority of my challenges in both childhood and adulthood. Now I’ve gone down a rabbit hole, taking all the tests online I could possibly take and researching like a maniac.
Quite sure I am also hyperlexic. Started reading on my own by age 3. Also bugged my mom constantly in the first month of grade 3 to request I skip a grade and she finally caved. (She was also a teacher) So I skipped grade 3. It was hard and I was bullied, but I think it wouldve been harder to stay in grade 3.
Funny you say you think you would’ve been a good proofreader. I had a job for many years running a data entry department at a printing company. All finals went through me before going to print…. And the font was size 7 😬 it was my favourite job ever. I was so good at it.
I find if I look at a word repeatedly the meaning “disappears” and then the word looks strange to me. Not sure if that’s related, but it’s an interesting thing that happens to me.
Anywho, thanks for your vids, they have helped me figure out who I am. It’s funny, figuring out I’m autistic, makes me feel like there’s nothing wrong with me… I’m just autistic. :) before I always felt like being different was weird and I should be more like others. 💕
Wow. My story exactly. I was reading and spelling words prior to age 3, and writing sentences before age 5. I then masked extremely heavily until autistic burnout at age 46 and was diagnosed autistic this year at age 48. Still coming to terms with it all, your videos help me enormously!
4 years late to this video.
I am almost 35, hyperlexic, diagnosed ADHD at age 6, and have my assessment for autism in a month.
Excited about it. Also scared that they will tell me “you don’t have autism just calm down.”
Good luck to all out there on the journey of self discovery. I wish you the best and though I don’t know you, I am on your side.
I love languages, especially the etymology of words and finding similarities in different languages (to the degree that I probably annoyed the heck out of my Spanish teacher by constantly finding connections between Spanish and English (neither are my native languages). I don't know if it can quite be called hyperlexia, but I learned to read at the age of five, which is two years before school starts here. My older brother had started school, and I found his books absolutely fascinating, and learned to read before him, on my own. I'm Finnish, and the way kids are taught to read at school is through spelling letter by letter and syllable by syllable, and I kinda skipped that phase and went straight to reading and writing full words. I remember being really worried when I started school, about not knowing how to use syllables, but it turned out that it wasn't that hard after all.
I'm supposed to hear my diagnosis results on whether I have ASD or not in June, and as a kid everyone just figured I'm smart. I definately learn things best through reading and finding connections, instead of by hearing. It helps me to focus on listening to doodle or draw while I listen (or fiddle with something), but I faze out really easily. And especially when I'm tired, I can accidentally flip words (like pig Latin) and say them wrong without even noticing. Which is very embarrasing sometimes. 😂
I do the first thing too and I love when I find words that are the same in languages in completely different language families.
It's interesting what you say about flipping words. Puns and wordplay come naturally to me, to the point that I'll use them in everyday speech, much to the annoyance of my dear wife. Spoonerisms are a particular favourite of mine, "pying fran" instead of "frying pan" and so on.
The worst you never realise you flipped the words until everybody is laughing and you pass to robot talking while trying to process what the hell is happened
This is 100% me. I taught myself to read when I was 3, because apparently I complained that my older siblings could read and I couldn't, and my mum just gave me a book and said "well go ahead then". I could also write a few words, but writing came a bit later and while I hardly ever made any spelling mistakes, my handwriting was not very pretty in primary school.
I was also always interested in languages and alphabets and other script systems. I have a Master's degree in Indoeuropean Linguistics (which included learning to translate from Latin, Greek, Gothik, Sanscrit, Old Irish, Old Persian, and a few others) and I can read a fair bit of French and a bit of Spanish, but the only languages I can actually speak are my native language German, and fluent English.
I spent most of my childhood and teenage years reading, first in German, then also in English.
After meeting my now-husband, I developed the theory that we might both be autistic, and while he got his formal diagnosis right away, I came out of the process without a diagnosis. The diagnostic process is still very much focused on male children, and unless you're lucky enough to find a professional (AND get an appointment...) who specializes in autism in adult women, or you're very much IN YOUR FACE autistic, it's very hard to get a diagnosis.
So for now, my overwhelmed and clinically depressed self has temporarily given up, and I live as a self-diagnosed Aspie (I know, it's ASD now) and try to muddle through the best I can. My husband hasn't really DONE anything with his diagnosis (like getting support etc), but it came as such a relief to finally know why he is different, and it helps us both understand the way we experience things.
This is extremely eye opening. I've known I'm hyperlexic, but some of the things you mentioned I definitely experience and didn't realize they are related to hyperlexia. I am obsessed with root words, and I was just telling my husband the other day how fascinating prefixes and suffixes are. I actually had a really shitty boyfriend in college who was always telling me my obsession with my phonetics class was ridiculous. I just found it completely fascinating that you can write things with phonetic symbols and read them that way. I didn't understand phonemes or phonics when I was a kid either. In fact, I was spelling perfectly until a teacher was telling us to sound it out. Then I was spelling things wrong because the sounds didn't match up to the letters. I actually got into trouble because of this, my mom had to come in for a parent teacher conference because of it. The teacher's suggestions made me regress in my spelling. It's angering thinking back on it. I was reading at 2 or 3, my mom said I could read the words in the newspaper or if we drove by a sign. But it's hard for me to read context in certain situations on the internet when someone types something, I read it the wrong way because I can't "read between the lines" and cannot "read" context very well.
I was a hyperlexic kid but I've only just now, thanks to this video, understood why language learning in general is so easy to me! You mentioned the thing about understanding etymology rather than semantics, and now it makes perfect sense to me. I see these connections between words in different related languages and it's really easy for me to read a language I don't really know. On top of my native Finnish I only speak English, German and Swedish, but I can read languages like Latin, Italy, Dutch and Estonian pretty fluently, and understand the context of for example French or Portuguese texts. I've never *tried* to learn any of these additional languages, but I constantly draw these equations between the languages I do know and the new language I'm currently reading. I don't know how to explain this better, but sometimes I can see the etymological history between two cognates and what kind of changes in these languages have lead to the differing cognates. I've always thought it's just the autistic special interest thing where I've always been super interested in languages, but now that I think about it, mere interest doesn't explain how Latin nearly completely opened up to me once I became fluent in English.
I kind of resonate with almost everything you said in this video. I'm only self-/peer-diagnosed as autistic, but I can definitely say I was/am hyperlexic. I really don't remember not being able to read. My mother and grandmother told me I read a newspaper headline to my grandmother when I was 2. I have no memory of that, but I do remember being excited when my older brother started kindergarten (when I was 3) because it meant I could read his books and magazines while he was at school. And I remember being angry when I started kindergarten and learned that we wouldn't have access to the school library, because I wanted to read the rest of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. There were words that I didn't know the definition and pronunciation of, but I did understand how to "sound them out" (don't remember being taught phonics except maybe through Sesame Street) so I usually got fairly close. I'm with you on the spelling, though since the rise of social media, I'm having a harder time with spelling because I see some misspellings so often that they are starting to "look right". And don't get me started on British English vs American English spellings! I'm American, but there are many words that I tend to use British spellings for as often as not, since the Sherlock Holmes books were among my favorites as a child, LOL.
I also think I have an auditory processing disorder. I've had several hearing tests through the years, the kind where they put you in a soundproof booth, put headphones on you, and then you press a button when you hear a tone. Each time I was told I have exceptionally good hearing and an exceptional range (and yes, I can hear florescent lights, the old tube-style TVs, etc). But I often have trouble understanding what people say, and definitely do the "what?" and then figure it out before they're done repeating it. A few years ago I realized that I use lip reading to help process what people are saying; it was so instinctual for me that I didn't even know I was doing it until I was in my mid-40's. I think that might be one of several reasons why I have so much anxiety about talking on the telephone.
Hi Sam! I love your videos. I am in my 50's and was (unofficially) diagnosed with Asperger's in my 30's when I found out that one of my son's has Asperger's. (Since then a brother of mine was also diagnosed, in his 40's). I was an early reader, and also learned math early. I agree about the pattern recognition idea; mathematics is all about patterns. I also have the sensory delay thing going on (just ask my husband). I am really good at language, figuring out root words, even in other languages. I actually have seven kids (all adults now) that have various autistic-like traits to varying degrees. And we definitely communicate very well among ourselves :)
Oh yes, and by the time my oldest was ten, he and his two younger brothers ( 9 and 7) tested out at the 12th grade reading level.
I was diagnosed ASD at 56 yrs. old. Looking back I can explain so much of how I looked at the world. Learning about Hyperlexia is amazing. I was reading far above my grade level at a very young age which my parents thought I was just super smart! And I was teaching my younger sister to read by the time she was 4 and I was only 6. The most striking memory was I had learned the “ABC song” and could say it backwards just as quickly and musically as I could forwards before kindergarten. So when I was asked to say my ABC’s in kindergarten I would say it backwards. My teachers thought of me as a precocious smart ass.
yes! my 4 yr old is hyperlexic. he started recognizing words on signs like "exit" "open" "push", etc. at age 2. i pointed to the pictures when i would read him bedtime stories and he made me point to the word i was reading. he just figured it out. he was reading full "frog and toad" stories at age 3, and is beginning to write sentences now at age 4. he even wrote up a birthday card for for me earlier this month!
i had an informal diagnosis of asd at age 38 and i have suspected for a while that he may be on the spectrum as well. he used(?) echolalia when he was learning to speak, flaps his hands a bit, and has a knack for arranging things ♥️
thanks so much for these videos. i just found your channel tonight and i am going to watch probably every video very soon 😂
I just wanted to mention that it was really nice to hear that someone else scripts their RUclips videos out thoroughly. I have heard people say that scripted videos are not recommended on RUclips because they make you sound less authentic and are boring. But I also write way better than I can talk, especially on the spot, and have found I need to write very detailed scripts for my videos or else I get lost and fumble a lot. I have felt very insecure about this fact, so hearing that one of my favorite youtubers does the same thing was comforting. :)
I find that when I don't have to think about what I'm saying, I can work more on the delivery. :-) (Also "favourite youtuber" *blush*!)
Yo Samdy Sam Defiantly live stream if we go off the script in the chat.
Your hyper focus on the next part of live stream you've rehearsed.
But then live conversation doesn't happen like that then you can notice that the chat how it can come up with something completely different.
Which we can all look forward to in the next live stream on empolyment.
My suggestion in past comment video ask you anything live stream.
But that is unfair of me. That would be really hard on you Samdy.
Because you answering question from working memory. For example,
What have done this week?
That is hard question I feel a delay myself when I'm ask that question.
because that you have to go into your working memory for a answer.
So it best for you eventhough I don't know what other subscribers think.
Keep doing your topic based live stream better because you can plan what to say?
This is so interesting because I'm actually terrible at spelling, partly because I never bothered to learn phonics and partly because I read so fast that my brain just skips over all the middle letters!
😱 I’ve been casually looking into whether or not I could be autistic and this is one I haven’t heard of before. I learned to read at like the age of 2. I remember being so frustrated in 1st grade (when we’d go around the circle and read) that everyone else couldn’t read yet 😂
Yup. I read at 2 yrs old. I communicate so much better via writing. I am selective mute, so makes sense.
Both my boys were not too interested in reading at an early, but could if they wanted to. They demonstrated the ability.
Thank you for this very insightful video, where you describe my 3 year old son, autistic, hyperplexic, hypernumeracy, can count in other languages, plays piano and much more but doesn’t communicate, you gave an insight into how he is learning and how he sees things
I recently found your channel and I feel like I've learnt so much - I had no idea this was something linked to autism and watching your videos I relate on so many things. It's fascinating
Yes, yes, and AMEN. Certified Life Coach for ADHD adults, here; diagnosed in adulthood after both daughters were. Noticed ASDers gravitate toward my practice "by chance". I'm aware of symptom "overlap" I inhale everything ADHD/neuroscience, but it's taken me too long to recognize I myself have far more than an "symptom overlap" with ASD. You're a gem- and I admire your determination to get your videos out here! This one put me over the top; I've run out of fresh ways to express, "Oh my gosh- ME, TOO!!" Thank you muchly:-*
Hi Sam, this is the first video of yours I've seen and thank you so much for making it!
I was diagnosed autistic as an adult (afab) and I have always struggled with spelling but I am about 80% sure I am hyperlexic. This is because of two main reasons: I don't remember ever not being able to read, and my mum said I could read before I started school at 4 years old. She later walked that back a bit and said I was 'reading along to books I already knew' but I'm going with her first explanation instead.
My memories of early reading is hazy because instead of being encouraged in school I think I accidentally tricked my teachers into thinking I was illiterate. So I was stuck on those three words a page books and hating it until Harry Potter came out when I was about 9. That series really got me into reading. Basically I excelled and then stopped... until my classmates nearly caught up.
Other things that resonate with what you said and my experiences: in my life I have studied French, German, Spanish, Irish, Welsh, Latin, and ASL - none for very long other than French which I studied for 14 years. I have never ever been good at oral/aural languages but at one point I was the best in the class at written translation. I can still translate Latin by sight. I've started taking an edX ASL Chereology (visual linguistics) course because I figure if I understand the components my ability to understand the signs will go up; I really don't get that whole 'ah,beh,keh' alphabet thing... not sure we did that at my school; I look at the components of words/etymology instead of semantics most of the time (my favourite example about how etymology effects words is comparing diaphragm and schizophrenic which have the same root "phren-" from the greek meaning stomach/belly/mind because that's where the greeks thought your mind was located); and probably more that i forgot in the course of typing this all out.
At one point I thought I might be dyslexic because my spelling is really really really bad but my reading is really really good so it can't be dyslexia... I'm still not sure what's going on there tbh.
Fascinating! Pretty sure I am hyperlexic as I was self-taught and reading before I started school aged 4. Newly exploring the possibility I am autistic at age 40. I relate to everything you said so much. I have no hope of remembering someone's name if I can't spell it and picture it in my mind. Actually no hope of remembering or learning anything that I hear if I don't write it down immediately. Audiobooks don't really work for me, I'm always stopping to replay and write things down!
Love this topic, very interesting! My older sister took care of me as a baby because my mum was ill. She says she read to me a lot and that I began reading words out of magazines and newspapers at the age of two. I was definitely reading and writing fluently before starting school. I started at early at age 4 as well and I distinctly remember sitting on the floor with the other kids being shown flash cards with 3 and 4 letter words and thinking, ‘Can’t you lot do this already?’ I read through all the ‘baby’ books in the first week or two and they didn’t know what to do with me so they put me in the next year up, I can’t remember how all that worked out in terms of how long I spent in which school year, but I remember being told I had a reading age of 13 when I was only 6. I was given older children’s books to read, and whilst I could technically read out the words, I did not know what they all meant, and nobody seemed to realise or question that. This was in the early 1970’s, and the teachers were the kind that only take that job because they enjoy torturing children.
By contrast, I have always had problems with figures and arithmetic, so much that even now, budgeting and working out value for money, or knowing I’m getting the right amount of change makes me very anxious and confused. I think there is certainly an issue (or at least there was when I was growing up) that if a child is intelligent in one area (especially reading/writing) it is assumed they should be that way across the board and should also be well behaved and obedient. Not always the case!!
Thank you for making this video and others. With this one it has inspired me to find a good English teacher on here as I have a fascination with life and I write poetry and so I feel the need to advance in my vocabulary so that I can put words to my feelings much more.
This is me. You are describing my childhood. I was in chapter books by the time most of my 1st grade classmates were still reading early readers. And it's very interesting to note that audio books (most of them anyway) are sort of like auditory versions of "dyslexia friendly" fonts. So that audio books are at a pace and diction that are easy for me to interpret - where, say, I have to watch TV shows with subtitles on just to understand what anyone is saying. Interestingly enough, this meant that I really enjoyed foreign films because reading didn't bother me at all.
Thank you... I already assumed it, because mostly you speak so fast, that to follow you i need to set the RUclips speed on 0.75, which helps a lot.
No critics, luckily RUclips has that feature.
I remember after having read all books in the local tobacco-shop that also functioned as local library, i went to an official library on the age of 9-10. I looked at the books on the shelves and selected some on Atoms, Neutrons, Radio-astronomy, geological (stones) and Planets. When i put them on the desk she said: "Oh but the children-books are over there." But i was allowed to take them with me.
As a former SLP in training and a linguist, that sounds EXACTLY like auditory processing disorder!! It has absolutely nothing to do with your hearing acuity (how well you can hear in ideal conditions) and really starts looking holistically at hearing and the processing of that.
I also think I am (mildly?) hyperlexic. I was reading fluently by the time I entered kindergarten and was always 1-2 grade levels ahead in terms of reading level through grade school. I also self-identify as autistic and am pretty sure the criteria on the DSM-V you covered in a different video verifies my non-diagnosis in a way!
I absolutely adore your channel!!! Thank you for doing this because I feel as though it’s super important to have fun and informative content about Autism!
A hyperlexic autistic with auditory sensory processing disorder here. :) I think you are absolutely right: I am multilingual (also have a linguistics degree), and as I understand now it has been a huge compensation for my auditory issues. My sound processing is jumbled in the same way how dyslexia jumbles one's letters, making them jump around, disappear and reappear. But with me it happens with sounds, which makes me take longer to process. But at the same time my hyperlexia + special interest in historical linguistics balance that side out :) thanks for your videos!
I "taught myself to read" at 2 1/2 years old. They skipped me ahead. I'm 55 now and I'm considering that I am autistic, because both of my children are on the autism spectrum. My son learned to read at 3 1/2. And I devoured books. My parents wouldn't let me know what I scored on the IQ tests in school. My daughter had difficulty learning to read because I was baffled by phonics too. My son did the same thing! "Firestone" on a sign as we drove, he "read" it!
I went to nursing school and I put my notes on note cards and I had 100% recall through my prerequisites and nursing courses. I could close my eyes and see my note cards.
My daughter has auditory processing deficiency. Wow. Thank you for connecting A LOT of dots for me! As I get older it's harder for me to "mask" and certain compulsive activities are soothing. Like doing research. Choosing to traverse the rabbit holes is both soothing and intellectually challenging. Explains also why I took etymology as an English elective! Word roots and origins are fascinating! Thanks again for helping me to discover more about myself! 🙏🏻
I am autistic, found out at age 41. I was hyperlexic, too. In fact, I had selective mutism, too. I refused to speak to the other children in my pre-school classes. When my teachers found out I could read well, I was allowed to do the Storytime readings. Reading aloud was pretty much the only time my voice was heard at that time in my life - other than around family, I was comfortable speaking at home. I am a musician and taught myself to read music, too. I don’t ever remember learning to read music. I started piano lessons and just skipped those learn-to-read pages in the books. I also have an auditory processing disorder which has probably been the source of most of my frustrations in life as I look back. The extreme difference between my visual and auditory capabilities is confusing to everyone, including myself. And, auditory processing disorder as a musician is definitely impairing.
Janelle Phinney I can relate in some ways. Having such a diverse range in abilities over many subjects is certainly is very frustrating.
I'm not autistic or hyperlexic but I totally relate to what you said about being naturally good at spelling. I didn't speak any English before age 4 and my family immigrated to Canada - I think at that point I was just picking up the language from my environment/daycare/tv the way young children can but my parents were still worried about my English so they hired one of my daycare teachers to tutor me in phonics for a summer and from that my reading/writing level shot up. I remember being very effortlessly above my grade level all through elementary (primary) school. It's so interesting how you described spelling because that's exactly how I felt about it - I could always just tell when a word was spelled correctly or not and could always get 100% on spelling tests in school. But because I was ESL as a child and learned English from phonics/reading (and not from hearing words) I oftentimes pronounced words totally wrong - I once INSISTED island was pronounced phonetically until my first grade teacher had to correct me haha. English is, for all intents and purposes, my first language now, but its so interesting to think back on how language acquisition happened when I was young!
I liked written words because they are primarily a visual thing, and only secondarily an auditory thing. This preference was painfully obvious in a high school English class when we learned about iambic pentameter and had to then write a poem in it. I knew stresses were a property of words, so for every word I wanted to use in my poem, I looked it up in the dictionary to find out which syllables were stressed. This took a lot of time and my poem wasn't very good. It was only much later that I realized stresses on syllables were a property of the words that could be heard when spoken!
This is really interesting - I was several years ahead of others in early primary school, seldom made spelling mistakes and was reading above my level, knew things that I wouldn't be expected to at that age
I know from my own experience that showing ability at a young age does not necessarily mean those abilities can be put to any practical use as an adult
Wow this is fascinating! I am waiting on my diagnostic assessment but I've suspected for years that I'm autistic (I'm a 31 yr old female). I had no idea this was related to autism but my mom always tells this story about how when I was two and a half years old I demanded that she buy me "Hooked on Phonics" which was a system for learning to read that I had seen advertised on TV. It's even more interesting to hear some of the differences with the verbal aspects because that is also much harder for me - and I was actually in speech language therapy for in my first year of school despite already reading at a high level. Thanks for all of the valuable information, Sam!
I suspect that I am autistic (I’m still waiting to get evaluated), and I also think that I am hyperlexic. I knew all of the sounds of the alphabet when I was 18 months old, and I was already reading and writing in Spanish by four. I also started learning English as a toddler, and I was pretty much bilingual by six. This video was super interesting! It’s amazing how much I relate to so many things you talk about on this channel.
I dont remember this but my parents have told me that some time before i started school i was suddenly just reading on my own. My guess is that it was because ive always loved reading, and still do, and i was probably eager to read by myself. I started reading YA books early too. Same with adult books. And the same happend with my writing. And it saddens me a little cause it does raise some flags for possible autism and if the school had picked up on that i might have gotten my autism diagnosis much earlier in life then in my mid-20s. I do have a story related to my advanced reading. When i had just started school, this was the first week or so, a girl that was a year older then me was pretending to read a book out loud to us younger kids. I looked at the book and noticed that she wasnt actually reading the text. She just made up the story based on the pictures in the book. And i said out loud “That’s not correct”.
KookieM love your story
I've just started learning more about the more comprehensive list of autism traits (rather than the stereotypical traits that seem so incredibly wrong now), and the more I think about it, the more I realize that many behaviors now and in my childhood point to it. I'm saying this specifically on your comment because I also am/was a voracious reader, and I feel like finishing an entire adult crime series by the end of second grade should have pointed to something. Heck, I learned how to completely structure a story so I could write a fan fiction about my favorite book series in first grade. It's just very interesting to watch these videos and read comments and relate so much to people who have autism because I have never felt this understood in my life.
Re phonics: if you have difficulty with auditory processing (as you mentioned), I wonder if learning phonics/phonemic awareness would be less useful to you in learning to read, at least at those early phases of reading acquisition. The science of how we learn to read is an area of special interest for me and I could talk about it all day, so thank you for alerting me about a new rabbit hole for me to go down!
I'm also hyperlexic and autistic.
At the age of 2 I started to teach myself how to read and was a fluent reader at the age of 4.
My father once told me how my primary school teacher said to him how unusual it would be for a first grade student not even being able to read easy words. She thought I couldn't read, but I just didn't talk that much. My father was really surprised by that, at home I was reading all the time.
I wonder why they didn't thought of me being autistic, I showed so much signs.
Great vid Sam. Definitely hyperlexic - first year of school was completely strange. Remember those Janet & John books - which I flew through so that I could be the first to play with the train set. I'm very much a visual learner: later in life enjoyed chemistry and biochemistry - I could easily see and recall all those flow charts of chemical interactions etc.
I learned to read by age 3 and I could identify all the states of the USA on a map by age 2. I am self-diagnosed at this point but I have no reason to doubt my own conclusion even though my psychiatrist is blowing me off. Your videos are so encouraging to me, I wish I had more in person support in my city. My marriage is currently falling apart and I don’t have anyone to help me through it. I feel like everyone that is supposed to be helping is standing by waiting for me to implode. And I will soon without help. I have no idea why I’m posting this here I guess I think this is my best bet for finding people who will understand. The late diagnosed autism community feels like the most appropriate place for me. I really want to meet some of you in person. 😢
I’m the complete opposite. Autistic and dyslexic. I didn’t catch up to my peers until 3rd grade (8yo) in reading level. Still to this day it takes me months to finish a book and I cant spell to save my life.
Despite this I have always been a huge bookworm. As a child I was able to recite full passages from books verbatim, had an extensive vocabulary, and a special interest in Shakespeare that included reading my favorite scenes out loud to my family on a regular basis.
I also reliably score in the 90th percentile or higher on writing and reading comprehension tests. Most recently I scored in the 99th percentile on my graduate school entrance exam (GRE). Just a reminder to anyone that might think that having dyslexia or being slower to learn something means you aren’t as smart as those who pick it up quickly.
I was super excited to see this video! I always told people I taught myself to read, I was reading before kindergarten, my grandma remembers, and I knew things not possible to know. I recently discovered it's a thing called hyperlexia. I'm still trying to find a doctor who can diagnose me with autism spectrum disorder. I also always read really far ahead in class and got in trouble for it. I could not be bothered to slow my reading down for the class, it was painful to do so for me.
I have the same issue with auditory issues. I've had hearing testing on numerous occasions. I think I have sensory processing disorder, as I have a lot of sensory issues.
Your description of how your son is learning reading reminds me a LOT of my experiences teaching ESL to Chinese kids. A lot of parents push them to learning English the way they learn Chinese (drilling memorization of characters) *without* learning phonics first, which leads to a lot of guessing words (similar, but not the same, kind of like how your son guessed "excavator" instead of "extinct" based on how the words look, without necessarily being aware of phonics/blending letter sounds. It's interesting how you mentioned being confused by phonics as a kid, I was hyperlexic as a kid too, but the opposite. I memorized the letter-sounds/phonics (was always very sound-fixated) from an early age, often made/wrote nonsense words with phonics for fun, and learned to read before kindergarten (probably from watching a LOT of sesame street...). Had a very high reading ability as well. However, I found spelling rules VERY confusing/arbitrary, often wrote my letters backwards, and eventually had to take my spelling tests in the SPED room in elementary school after failing so many spelling tests, even after drilling with my mom at home.
I was definitely hyperlexic as a child; I also spoke in complete sentences and carried on conversations with adults around the age of 2. I'm now strongly suspecting that I'm autistic and have ADHD (I haven't been diagnosed). Thank you so much for sharing your insights :)
Are you hyperlexic? How do you describe the way you learned to read and the way you process written language?
I don't know a lot about my childhood, I've blocked a lot of it out due to the painful memories associated with it.
I have been told that I was very delayed in speaking, but I do speak 3 languages and have worked as a translator/proof reader for many years. So maybe there's some merit in this theory of language proficiency.
Also, I don't think I mask as such, but I have learned strategies to socialise better. Most people say now that they would never tell I'm autistic.
I don't know whether I would qualify as hyperlexic but was definitly a very early reader, and process written information much faster than spoken. I also have had my hearing tested multiple times because my auditory processing is so slow. Only realised a few months ago (after watchng one of your videos) that I am probably autistic and this explains a lot.
mazziemarie Not responding to my name to the register.
My mum tell me I did that.
I did I like it? absolutely not. I felt like a kid with a broken brain at school.
There were times at junior school I walked around the playground like a zombie because I forgot to organise the play time or the events.
But after school was normal child behaviour I go round kids houses.
But secondary school that stop.
I see no friends outside of school that wasn't normal.
But I didn't feel like it wasn't normal at the time,
Attwood say in this aspergers lecture.
Junior school manageable.
Secondary school wheel some off.
Yes my experience, but my tires where rubbing to canvass up to end of junior school.
Then the wheel fell off in secondary school to use the metaphor.
To be brutally honest with myself.
Yo Samdy Sam I physically can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read, like, it’s ingrained into my head.
I'm autistic and based on your video probably hyperlexic.
I taught myself to read on the many tomes of my grandma's Encyclopedia Universalis which I ADORED.
I started reading middle grade books around age 5 and at age 7-8 I was starting to read YA. I couldn't understand children's books mediocre content and I was baffled by all the kids my age reading them.
Like you I had all my autistic traits attributed to a high IQ! But at the same time, I was classified as having an average to low development of spoken language, and had speaking issues up until age 8-9 (with many prononciation difficulties).
I'm now a linguist (working on a PhD), a librarian, and have studied the grammar of 10+ languages, including ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian!
When I was finally diagnosed with autism, this all finally made sense but I remember it being so confusing as a child.
What I liked the most was when you spoke about reading your videos and not making words on the spot: I'm exactly the same!!! People think I'm so bright and well spoken when I teach or make a video etc, when actually I'm more or less reading my (very good) notes but can't improvise consistent sentences to save my life. I never thought this could be related to hyperlaxia and autism, but thanks to you, I realise it definitely could be.
*Ps: English is not my first language at all though I teach in English)
*Pps: my ears were also regularly tested because I never answered right away (to this day I still need people to repeat at least twice to realise I'm being spoken to). This was ultimately attributed to very bad behaviour and everyone treated me like this naughty kid who didn't care about anything. When in truth I just hadn't heard them at all.
I'm 49, discovered I am autistic very recently and today learned hyperlexia exists and perfectly describes my experience.
I had no idea before today that anyone else did every single thing you described.
My daughter was hyperlexic and would correct our Grammer at 1 Yr and could read fluently by 3. We learned of this new skill in a funny way. While on a crowded bus in Vancouver, BC, she sweetly looked at the advertisements above us and says in her loudest clearest voice "what is erectile dysfunction? And why would we need to talk to our Dr about it?" the passengers snickered as we told her that we would talk about it at home. She decided to look it up on her desktop encyclopedia as soon as we got home and proudly announced all she discovered about the issue via Google.
This reminds me of one of my mom's favorite stories about me. We were at a harvest festival and I started reading signs people had posted at their stalls. Since I had just started school for the first time a few weeks earlier I must have been teaching myself to read for a while beforehand. My mom is one of the least observant people ever so this shocked her and she talks about it all the time now as one of the first times she realized how unpredictable I am to her.
This definitely seems to be what my little boy has. He started reading at the age of two. He’s 3y 4m and currently being assessed for asd. His understanding of how to read seemed to come out of nowhere and he has now memorised both the English and Russian alphabet, despite the fact there is absolutely no Russian in the family! He has also taught himself to count in German, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese. He just seems to memorise words so quickly!
Thanks for the video, it really helps me understand him.
This is so interesting. My early education experience was quite different. lol I couldn't really read until 3rd grade (I was nearly held back), then in the span of a few months I jumped to chapter books. I guess it took a while for something to click. Once I could read, I quickly began reading (then writing) many grade levels ahead, but my spelling was always *horrific*. My vocabulary was truly impressive, but I couldn't spell any of it. lol By age 15 my 9 yo sister could spell circles around me. It wasn't until half way through college I was diagnosed with a learning disability (LD-NOS) with significant elements of dyslexia and a few other things thrown in. It would take 4 years after the LD diagnosis to get the ASD diagnosis (technically PDD-NOS), and then everything started to make sense...lol
HAlC11235 Persuasive development disorder- non otherwise specified.
For those who heard of old DSM4 before 2013.
No one asking for PDD NOS back they are asking for Asperger's syndrome.
That's because PDD-NOS was a shit criteria.
Sorry for having a go at your past diagnoses.
But it so difficult for professionals to tell the difference it in between aspergers and high functioning.
But reading from Attwood book on the problems with the old DSM4 it was hard to tell the difference between between high functioning autism and Asperger's syndrome.
Then having PDD-NOS was a vague description between to HFA and AS.
In this aspergers documentary by formerly Alyssa Huber now Luisha nerodivergrnt I think.
There was a man with PDD NOS he was on the aspergers documentary.
Because PDD NOS is basically aspergers.
that is so me, I know a load of words just can't spell them and often struggle to say them.
@@garyfrancis5015 can you give me the name of the documentaries? Are you referring to tony attwood?
@@garyfrancis5015 Did you mean Pervasive, or a more obscure personality disorder that allows you to convince people of things more easily?
I'm pretty sure I'm hyperlexic, my mum often talks about how I was recognising brands/brand names as a very young child, and I remember in reception being given more advanced spellings to learn (and learning them like *that*), being given extra grammar exercises to do in the next couple of years, taking the year 6 literacy SATs in year 2 (and doing well on them). I also can't even remember ever reading books that only had a couple of words on the page and I was reading the first Harry Potter book either by the summer before year 1 (5 years old) or before year 2 (6 years old).
It's also interesting what you said about language learning and speaking/scripting, ever since I started learning other languages I got it really quickly, I just find it easy to make the connections and see the logic and understand how it works (at least in languages with a latin alphabet!). Up to GCSE my speaking results were also very good because you could basically write down everything you were going to say, i.e. scripting, and memorise it (which I was also very good at...I don't know if I have a photographic memory exactly but after a few times reading something through I could see the next word/sentence in my head), which meant I got high marks on speaking tests too. Which made it surprising when I got to A Level, where you actually have to talk off the cuff, and got a D in my Spanish speaking test (my Spanish teacher actually suggested/I think referred me to the special education unit or similar of my sixth form to get tested - I think he suggested dyspraxia but I'm not sure how that's related to difficulty speaking? - because of this, but he advised that I'd probably need to chase them up to get an answer and I never did haha). That's been a pattern ever since, even doing languages at university I'd only ever get average to poor marks, although I did pass...my second year Spanish just barely though...and my year abroad didn't help with this very much (for many reasons, my mental health was abysmal on my YA and it was the trigger to me starting to consider if I was ND), what did help with my German was working at a call centre (yes I know) because most of the issues were the same/very similar so I could more or less have scripted answers of what to say.
I would be really interested in hearing Sam's take on language-learning/living abroad etc as an autistic person, I have a lot of thoughts on it (especially as a language student about the inaccessibility to some/possibly many autistic/ND people (certainly me!) of the compulsory year abroad for the vast majority of UK students doing language degrees).
(random aside but I also feel like my language-learning has affected my spelling for the worse! I've always been good at spelling - like Sam said, words just look right or wrong - but I think having similar words in other languages that are spelled slightly differently has affected that somewhat).
I took me a lot longer than other people to learn how to read, but once I did learn how, I was better at it than everyone else.
I have not been diagnosed with either, but I am pretty sure I have both. (I am hoping to start the diagnosis process for Autism after I move this summer.)
I was reading by age 4 (maybe earlier) and I always read at really high levels compared to my peers. I constantly read and I think that helped me figure out how to interact with people. I was often just called really shy and quiet because I would observe new people before interacting. I am much better at reading than speaking/listening (which remained true when I learned Persian Farsi) Verbal instructions are difficult for me and I also have a delay and say “what” when people talk to me sometimes and then it clicks before they even repeat themselves.
I really appreciate your videos because although I am not officially diagnosed as Autistic, I feel like I’m finally starting to understand myself. I’m finally realizing that I am not just “weird” but my brain just processes things differently.
OMG this explains so much! I'm autistic, have ADHD and am hyperlexic (didn't know that was a thing until now!). Was reading books at four already, and always was very good with language and spelling. I'm proofreading my professor's papers because I catch errors others don't. As you say - the word just looks right, or else it looks wrong. Also, what you say about etymologising is exactly how I deal with words! *feels oddly happy now* Yay I am not a freak!
Omg this entire video is basically a perfect description of my childhood.
I relate to this soooo much. I was diagnosed hyperlexic (though only in adulthood)and my parents didn't report me as being an early reader. In fact, they say I struggled to learn in the same way as my sister and brother. However, I absolutely LOVE languages with a passion, especially grammar! I have learnt and am able to read many languages, and also speak a few. But, like you, I really struggle with auditory processing and because of that I have no interesting in listening to languages and everything I do is through reading. Due to my auditory processing difficulties I have been unable to keep up in lectures at university and prefer to learn visually.
Luna Aspie I find languages fascinating too. I learned French and Latin at school and after that was able to read and get the gist of Italian without ever learning any. I wish someone had picked up on my language abilities at a young age because I could have gone far with it and made a career out of it. My life didn’t go that way though.
@@tracik1277 I am the same with Germanic languages. I learnt German but can also read Dutch and Scandinavian languages. I would have loved to make a career out of my language ability but because I struggle with auditory processing and other aspects it was not possible. I still love to learn languages and have recently been learning Polish and Korean!
This is so interesting! I'd never heard of this before but it makes so much sense for me. I was reading extremely young and I couldn't stop - to the point that it became distressing/overstimulating. I would close my eyes on car trips because if I was looking out the window I couldn't help but read every single sign and number plate we would go past, the words were a cacophony in my head!
I'm autistic and hyperlexic. My daughter is also hyperlexic (no asd diagnosis as of yet), but she hates to read and it makes me so sad!
ETA: not sad because I think it's 'bad' that she doesn't like to read, more because reading brings me so much joy, and I'd love for her to experience that too.
This is fascinating. I learned to read at 18 months; I have no memory of not being able to read. My mother says the teacher taught her to read on her first day of school (which, I'm guessing, meant she already could). I got in trouble in school for jumping ahead of the instruction in the physical mechanics of writing. This is the first I've heard this term!
It is interesting to hear an autistic mom being very analytic towards her kid. I am looking forward to hear more about your kid development. I don't really know if I am autistic or not, but I did have hyperlexia and my husband is a autistic man with a very high IQ, so we are very likely to have an autistic kid as well and I would like to be (actually feel) a bit more "ready" when the time comes. Thank you for the insightful video.
Wow, you sound a lot like me! I learned to read when I was still in a high chair, according to my parents and grandparents. I’m good at spelling, grammar, and other languages, but not good at speaking spontaneously. I was diagnosed with ADD at age 8, but I think I may also be autistic. Your videos are really helping me feel not so alone!
I'm not sure when I learned to read, but I remember my reading and spelling age always being many years above everybody else. I would always score close to 100% on any reading tests. I've also always had trouble "hearing" - I've always described myself as having hearing problems but being sensitive to sound at the same time. Autistic sensory issues plus auditory processing issues makes total sense!
This may also be why I really love to have subtitles on the TV. My family always took the mick out of me for it, but having the subtitles there helps me quickly understand what people are saying, whereas without them I am often a bit behind and struggle to follow the conversations. My husband is happy to have them on, so... it's normal in our house, now.
I'm a visual learner without much of a "mind's eye". My spelling is pretty spot-on, but if you ask me how to spell a word, I have to write it down.
Thank you, Sam. Yet again, you have given me an epiphany, another "ohhh so THAT'S why I do xyz" moment. I've got lots of info to bring with me to my assessment, which will be scheduled soon! :D
You're hyperlexic story is very similar to mine, including a hyperlexic child. I never really felt well in my life and after three therapies I got diagnosed at the age of 53!! Autism was my idea, I myself initiated the diagnosis. So basically saying: I am a perfect example of your theory for that third group.
Oh man. I was reading before kindergarten and when I was 2 years I would drive my mom crazy making her read the Dr Seuss ABCs book to me. I don't need this right now.
I'm hyperlexic and autistic. I started speaking in full sentences at 18 months old and actually got kicked out of a day care for biting the other kids because they wouldn't talk to me. Of course it never occurred to my 2 year old brain that they COULDN'T talk. I had read the first 5 Harry Potter books by the time I was 6. In second grade I tested at a sixth grade reading level, in fourth grade I tested at a tenth grade reading level and in sixth grade I tested at a college reading level. I've never had problems with reading, reading comprehension, writing or speaking fluently but I have problems pronouncing things correctly and processing auditory information. In school I've always had to have someone take notes for me because I can't process what the teacher is saying fast enough to write it down without falling behind. Honestly despite having a few problems here and there I DO consider my hyperlexia a super power. I LOVE to read, every book is another world to explore and most of them are a lot more fun than this one. I get lost in the pages, my mind weaves elaborate pictures for every sentence which is why I'd rather read a book than watch a movie any day. I read an average of 3 to 5 books a week, yes really. When I was a kid the local library had a contest to see who could read the most books over the summer, I don't think I lost once the entire 6 years I lived there. I also love writing, creating my own worlds to share with people. A lot of what I write is rather disturbing though which is why I haven't published yet. Anyway I don't think hyperlexia is a disorder, I really do think it's a gift, I've gotten much more good from it than bad.
I'm hyperlexic and autistic. I started reading by the age of 3 and it was basically how you are describing your son's reading growth. I grew very attached to a book until I could read it myself and my parents originally assumed I had memorized it, but then I started recognizing words in other places!
Wow I didn't know hyperlexia was a thing.. But I definitely regocnize it in myself! I could read before I started school (at age 4) and I've always been super into written language as well. I was diagnosed with autism at age 19. Really interesting to see that there's some kind of connection between autism and hyperlexia beyond just 'being smart'.
I don’t think I started reading early but I can definitely relate to what you said about how it’s easier for you to form your thoughts through writing than it is for you to form thoughts through speaking. I’m the same way! Also I’m pretty sure I have auditory processing disorder too.
That's same for me too. I even had to go to speech therapy when I was a child and I still have trouble pronouncing certain things now. Though I could read at an early age as well.
I am type 3 hyperlexic, although you made a good point there about learning to mask. Because really it do be like that.
Most people who know me, except for those who know me *really* well, would be surprised to find that I have social difficulties or even that I'm introverted by nature. I've apparently learned to mask really well, but it also means that social interactions tire me out *really* quickly. Another thing that comes with all of this, I'm realising now, is my fairly intense anxiety at phone calls.
I really struggle with phone calls, and web calls where I can't see the person I'm talking to. There's just not enough information that I can easily process, and my mind ends up hyperfocusing and tiring itself out really quickly so I lose track of the conversation.
Another odd negative for me is that I struggle quite fundamentally with understanding implicature in-situ. Not necessarily because I can't grasp what's being implied, but usually because I either don't notice that something's being implied (being too literal-minded) or because I see too many potential implications and can't pick out the one that's intended. This leads to frustration in my personal life when, for example, my fiancé - who is dyslexic - points at something and expects me to pick up from social cues and context what she means, or substitutes "the thing" etc for what she's actually talking about. Things most neurotypical people would have absolutely no problem with, but just completely blocks my understanding of what the hell is even going on.
This sounds a lot like me. I'm sure I was reading before I started going to nursery. I used to annoy my parents because on car journeys, I would read all the text I saw - aloud. I too didn't really understand phonics, and I would work out new words in blocks like you said. I do this when I'm learning foreign languages today. Even now I'm 18, I discover English words that I must have long misunderstood because I wasn't aware of the deeper semantics.
I love languages, so much so that I'm going to uni to do linguistics in September. As you say, the ability and enjoyment of pattern recognition certainly plays a role in my interest for the subject.
Somewhat counterintuitively, I recently began to receive extra time in exams and use coloured filters for reading. This was because I was diagnosed with scotopic sensitivity syndrome (which I'm sure must an autistic sensory difficulty). It makes it difficult for me to read from white paper; the space between the words shimmers and overwhelms the words, and it slows my reading down.
Thank you for another interesting video.
Like OMG. I'm 29 and have never in my life thought about having autism... Until now. This whole story is about me. The more I read the comments below the video, the more it's all about me.
All of this is SO me. I taught myself how to read at the age of 4 by repeatedly listening to and following along with the Disney Heffalump book and cassette tape. Then I graduated myself to higher and higher reading level books from the public library until by the age of 9 I was reading books from the adults' section (my mother had to give special permission to the librarian for me to check out books from that section LOL). I also played on a Speak And Spell which taught me whether a word's spelling "looked right". Phonics was a nightmare for me which to this day I can't understand. I eventually became a Harlequin Teen author and a book editor for multiple publishers for decades until I "retired" a few years ago because I needed a change to more visually creative work.
I too have hyper sensitive hearing (I can tell what type of product is being touched by someone else inside the kitchen cabinets, whether it was sunglasses or some other object that just fell between the car door and seat, etc.). But when I hear speech, it takes me a delay to process what was just said and what the intended meaning of those words is. Sometimes I even have to ask the person to reword what they said so I can understand them, even though they're speaking in perfectly understandable English and English is my primary language. This has been getting steadily worse over the last few years to the point that talking with others is now a struggle. Choosing words for me to speak is even harder and I really struggle with aphasia.
This is so interesting to me. My daughter (ADHD possibly asd) is 3 and is reading. I was speaking in full sentences at 9 months old and also reading at 3 and also neurodivergent. Makes a lot of sense that her and I both would love words.
the thing about saying "what?" is also SO TRUE for me. like, i heard what they said, i just ask "what" to have a little more time to respond. i always just thought of it as, idk, a quirk i made up and then just kept repeating for no reason, but hm. now that you've mentioned it, it might indeed have something more to then just "no reason".
Yes, needing that extra second to internalize what they said the first time, I GET THAT! Instead of an awkward silent pause while you're taking things in, you force the other person to talk over the silence so that it's not awkward.
Even if I KNOW I heard what they said, I still say it. It just takes me a moment to process things. 100% me
Well this was an eye opener. I didn’t even realise it was a thing. I have always had good reading skills but don’t really recall how early I was reading. Now though, my little boy is two, and is fascinated with letters. He loves his alphabet set and definitely recognises certain letters, and has done for a few months I think.
I didnt learn how to read until I was 5 and mom took me out of school to homeschool and teach me. Apparently I was so bored with the material in school i zoned out and caused disruptions. But afterwards I picked up reading and became very advanced. I was holding full conversations with adults around 1 1/2 -2 years old to which an education professional once told my mom to teach me how to read then, but she refused. Nevertheless, all of my earliest memories revolve me being OBSESSED with languages and words. I was trying to learn and thoroughly mimicking Spanish on my own before I could read. We're still not sure what gave me inclination to do so since I wasn't raise in a Spanish speaking household. I used to scribble in attempts to write and once I learned writing filled up all my notebooks with stories. To this day I've grown a language obsession with Spanish, Russian and Korean and most of my high school and college notes are taken in a mixture of the 3.. My native language is English.
I'm Autistic and Dyslexic, but I also had an advanced reading age- just not out loud. I can read something and pick out the ideas (and memorize them) really quickly but I struggle to read out loud word for word, although Tinted glasses helped. I also have really advanced verbal language and vocabulary, always have done. However I really struggled with spelling and writing, also forming sentences is really hard. I can look at a word and know if It's spelt wrong but not know how to fix it which is really frustrating. Ahh like the word spelt, the past tense of to spell ahh. I read by memorizing the shape of the word rather than individual letters. I also really struggle with comprehension, I hate it. So I would disagree that Hyperlexia is the opposite of dyslexia, as I seem to have both.
I've been really looking forward to this as a (currently) undiagnosed autistic woman who was comfortably reading at writing by 3 (our childhood handwriting actually looks remarkably similar!). I also grew up bilingual English-Welsh and picked up other languages easily, although I never understood why this was a big deal as it was effortless on my part and I felt a bit of a fraud.
So many things here I can relate to and what you said about traits going under the radar because we were 'intelligent' (see also: obedient, polite...) meant other traits got explained away, only to be unpicked 20-30 years later... A trade-off for me has been in my numerical processing skills. I really struggle here and suspect I have discalculia (which, incidentally, is more common in female autistics compared with males). Things like substraction, working out change, processing clock-faces are all a bit exhausting for me. I've got strategies but they all take up a lot more effort (especially with synaesthesia thrown in for Extra Fun). Curious to know if this is something you/your followers experience?
But yeah, loved this. Could have written it about myself 😊 Thanks!
Ohhh I'm absolutely hyperlexic and autistic. I was reading around age 4, well before starting school. I always thought it was because I was impatient with having to wait around for my parents to read to me. I studied linguistics at university, speak French (well I've lost a lot of it), learnt Hindi from watching Bollywood movies to the point where I could communicate with people in India when I went there and was also studying Russian. Language has always been one of my passions.