How many of these traits (see post for details)?

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Only 4. If the word "early" had been taken out, then it would have been more than that. But I was and always will be a late bloomer. I didn't do anything early. I learned some things quickly, but never early.

Could you further explain or define the following:

I put 5, but after rereading it and discussing a few with my mum, I've realise I actually fit 9 of the traits, but likely more, as there were a few traits which I didn't understand and some I can't remember well enough to be sure.

Same here.

So, If you are more than ten, what does that mean??

Lacking in spontaneous language means, not using language without being prompted by someone or something.

For instance, when I was a child, I was very quiet and did not tend to initiate conversations or talk spontaneously.

Learning to speak by rote, and only through heavy repetition, means instead of knowing the meanings of all the words and stuff, the person memorizes clumps of words and only uses them for speech by using them over and over and over again and possibly being taught them over and over and over again. So they memorize which words to use in certain situations and then have to practice them in order to use them "properly".

My suspicion is that it means hyperlexia or something related, I just wanted to see how many people had how many traits. (I am thinking of making a more detailed poll in some place that allows for detailed polls, to find out which traits are most common for people to have.)

Very interesting.

Over the course of a lifetime I fit:
* Difficulty of understanding spoken words
* Autism
* Lacking in spontaneous language
* Lack of desire to be around other children
* Delay in typical social skills

This I didn't had at all, rather the contrary:
* Fascination with letters or numbers

Depending on what is meant by 'early', I may had these:
* Being able to decode written words very early
* Learning to spell complicated words early
* Learning to decode sentences early
* Assumed at some point to be highly gifted because of all the early decoding of written words

I was told that I could read at age 4 to 5. This is early compared to the fact that where I live, other children learn their first letters at age 6+. Since I didn't show interest in reading until age 7, there's no indication on how well I could read already.

I was amazed by the the following two:
* Learning to speak by rote, and only through heavy repetition
* Being echolalic (and using that eventually to develop other language)

I wasn't supposed to learn English, but I started using English words and sentences after a month during which I was exposed to a partly English speaking environment. I wasn't told translations, taught grammar or anything, and instead repeated words and whole sentences and learned grammar and vocab by this alone. In the beginning I just imitated what seemed appropriate to the situation.

There seems to be no connection to how I learned my first native language as a baby though, which makes this matter very confusing.

The silly little "secret" is that that is how nearly everyone learns a language. Just out of curiousity, what is your native language? I'm just curious, and europe could mean anything. And some places in europe, today at least, almost FORCE you into a kind of immersion environment for English.(I was surprised, for example, to see a lot of ENGLISH programs in denmark that were merely subtitled in danish. I actually learned some danish swear words!) Of course, I am not saying it is easy, etc..., but it DOES help!

You HAVE done well, though I assume you have augmented it some since.



I don't know if I understand what you mean there. My mother ALSO said I never babbled. Then again, I generally go over such things in my mind even today, so maybe I just never felt a need. I don't know if ANYONE really understands how babies so easily understand abstract concepts. Despite the claims, many autistic kids, and certainly AS kids, certainly learn most of them.

Sora is my "neighbor" - she's from Germany. As for programs in other languages, it doesn't exist here Programs produced in English are simply dubbed. I recall only some situations (maybe four or five) recently when I saw that there were scientific shows on Discovery Channel in their original English language versions, without subtitles. Introducing movies and programs in original language version but subtitled would spread knowledge of foreign languages (and improve accent) among our society.

That's pretty late. When I was attending kindergarten we weren't taught practically anything, I'd say now - I'm able to recall only several lessons of reading or making basic maths equations - normally we're only playing with toys or being taken for a walk, nothing more (well, I recall also religion lessons when the nun used to warn us never to spend time with those who didn't believe in God ). But now here's pressure to start to teach letters to young kids early because otherwise they can experience problems when they go to school.




I was able to read at the age of 2,5 according to my mother and half a year earlier I knew the letters as she told me. I always was VERY interested in reading - now I think that the expression obsessed with reading fits here well. I always used to feel a strong compulsion to read EVERYTHING I came across, even if in fact it wasn't anything interesting.

I learned German first as a baby. It probably helped getting 'a feel' for the English grammar. Before that fateful summer holiday, I had barely been exposed to English and couldn't understand even the most simple English words. We had English picture books at home, but as a small child, I wasn't interested in it, mostly due to the fact that my mom spoke German only since she'd come back from the US (way before my birth).

I always think my English is becoming rusty as the years pass by. I can't use English in my everyday life.



I meant to say that I had a very good language development. Maybe that is due to the fact that I already understood a lot more than I could verbalise as a child. When my mother talked to me or when my parents talked to each other, I understood most of it. When I was about one year old, shortly before I started talking, I was extremely frustrated, because I couldn't make the sounds I wanted to in order to answer questions or protest about something.
It was horrible, I can even remember some of it, I had screaming and crying fits all the time, because I couldn't talk although I wanted to and understood the basics of how.

It got better of course, but it did influence my everyday speech greatly until I was about three or four.

With English it was the other way around. I understood nothing, but just repeated everything until I got a better grasp on what it meant and could start to use grammar and vocabulary myself.


Oh. I now realise that I probably learned both languages in the same way, although I learned English much quicker, maybe due to being able to practise while learning it.

It was much the same with my kindergarten. It wasn't only horrible because I was forced into one room with other children, but it was also always very boring. I guess no kindergarten is like that any more here too with all the new plans the government wants to implement after Pisa. They started teaching English in elementary schools, but few people know that the kids don't learn anything that's useful. When they enter secondary school all they can say are things like 'hello', 'how are you' and they can name animals from the zoo.



Wow, that's truley incredibly early! And the total opposite of me too. Even when I could read something and the topic itself sounded fairly interesting, I didn't even start reading and instead just looked at the pictures if there were any. I really loved anything that had pictures in it, I have a whole bunch of picture books. I liked to learn basic astronomic facts and was given my own lexicon when I was perhaps 5 or 6 years old, but instead of reading the short texts, I looked at every picture that was in there. I did read the titles though, when I didn't know what a picture was meant to show, but I was unnaturally keen on avoiding reading as much as I could.

There is a basic structure most european languages seem to have, and German and English are identical there. German just throws in a lot more complexity with the verbs that can seperate, and multiple verbs in a sentence, declension, the odd way it handles sentences with words like "weil", etc...

Maybe it is just me, but I think it is easier for a native German speaker to learn English, than the other way around. When I was a kid, we could generally choose from one of four languages(italian, french, spanish, and german). German was considered the hardest.

As for your being rusty, you can't recognize it here! If you keep posting like this, your writing and knowledge could be ausgezeichnet(excellent). I don't know what kind of accent you have, but many here have one anyway. As long as you are easily understood...

Yeah, things are the same here! It is funny that I never really remembered it until relatively recently, but I DO remember rather remedial spanish teaching when I was in perhaps kindergarten. I remember how bad I thought it was THEN! SURE, I learned some words, and phrases, but it wasn't really usable. Apparently, MOST people learned even LESS!

BTW when I was in kindergarten, I soaked things up like a SPONGE! I bet you I still know everything I learned then, INCLUDING any spanish. Still, I remember the books being thin and simple. They were also not very densly packed with information. That was a private school that was supposed to be a good one. That very same school is doing fine(With 8 more schools for a total of 11 in 55 years) even today. I guess the "education" industry just doesn't expect much from 5 year olds. 8-(

Today, I am almost embarassed to say that one of my interests is languages. I have perhaps 20 represented by books at home, a nice suite having about 101 languages, and can do ok myself with about 6. One of the ones in the bottom 3(3 that I am least proficient at) is SPANISH! 8-(





Yeah, I wonder how proficient she was at 2.5 years! YIKES! Some teachers here refuse to encourage even 3rd graders(8 years old) to read! MAN am I glad I didn't have to rely on that. I wonder where I would be today if I had to rely on teachers. I would probably be delivering garbage or something. And teachers here are unionized and get tenure!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure

That means that they get a lot of benefits, better pay, and are harder to fire.

6

* Difficulty of understanding spoken words
* Autism (or similar condition)
* Lack of desire to be around other children (or this has been said about you because of your appearance, even if it wasn't true)
* Delay in typical social skills
* Jump forward in language around the age of 4 or 5
* Learning to spell complicated words early

all of them..... am not too sure about the sudden jump at 4-5... thats the start of school age anyway so youd expect every child to suddenly jump in language to some degree. but anyway in the start-of-school reading test i was something like 2 years ahead of my 'reading age' (it was all 'age appropriate' norms then)

i have an excuse though, you see my mum was a bottom-year (what would now be called reception) teacher, so she had a copy of the book the language tests were in, and she read them to me and i memorised them lol

its all relative though, my useful language hasnt improved at all over the years, i can remember getting into trouble one day in top-year (i was 7) for only writing 2 lines in 15 minutes... thats still about as fast as i can write even now. i can just spell more lol

what do you think about sentence structure and grammar as it relates to all this? i mean, stuff like over-formal / stilted use of language and apostronazi's? it seems like people can be 'hyperlexic' and 'dyslexic' in different areas, i know a 'proper' dyslexic who can't do spelling or style or grammar, and i know of hyperlexics who obsess over them all. but i only hyperlexically-spell, i do know where the apostrophes should go but cant be bother'd lol. but when it comes to structure/style i am the same as my totally dyslexic friend. i know a guy who is the total opposite, cant spell to save his life, but has way overly formal and stilted style....

anyway i sometimes call myself hyperdyslexic, since the structure/style problem is so bad its significantly disabling, at least as significant as dyslexia is (its what slows me down so much, making language non-viable for me), i'm rambling on and giving myself a headache now

I fulfill 4 definitely and 4 so-so.

* Difficulty (or impossibility) of understanding written words (or this has been said about you despite it not actually being true)

I have this. Poor reading comprehension. But great at phonetically reading words. There is a real disconnect between reading and comprehending.

* Difficulty (or impossibility) of understanding spoken words

Usually not.

* Autism (or similar condition)

Yup. Asperger's.

* Lacking in spontaneous language

Usually not. I've always talked WAAAAY too much for my own good. It can be hard to get me to shut up.

* Learning to speak by rote, and only through heavy repetition

Nope.

* Being echolalic, and using that eventually to develop other language (or what looks like language)

Nope.

* Delay in pragmatic speech

Nope.

* Lack of desire to be around other children (or this has been said about you because of your appearance, even if it wasn't true)

Yes.

* Delay in typical social skills

Obviously.

* Jump forward in language around the age of 4 or 5

Don't think so. First words at 10 months, didn't stop from there.

* Being able to decode written words very early (but not necessarily understand them or know what they're for)

I didn't like reading, so this is sort of a half-and-half for me. Reading has always been a real task to comprehend. My phonetic reading and spelling was always above my classmates.

* Learning to spell complicated words early

Again, half-and-half. I avoided words until school but had a talen in spelling and phonetic reading. Not comprehension. I still don't like reading even though I do it frequently. But now, I love the information I glean enough to stick with it. I still really struggle though.

* Learning to decode sentences early (again, not necessarily with meaning)

See above, half-and-half. No interest, but excelled at phonetic reading.

* Fascination with letters or numbers

Definitely not. At least not until I developed an interest in the sound of words, like poetry. But that was much later.

* Assumed at some point to be highly gifted because of all the early decoding of written words (despite the disconnects in comprehension and expression)

Highly gifted, yes. Because of early reading skills, not really.