Hyperlexia

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I was diagnosed ADHD when I was a kid, and ADHD who didn't interect normally. But what I had was actually Hyperlexia which should be gone, but since it isn't I was diagnosed asperger.

Hyperlexia according to the AHA - American Hyperlexia Society is an spectrum of autism.

Hyperlexia is a syndrome observed in children who have the following characteristics:
A precocious ability to read words, far above what would be expected at their chronological age or an intense fascination with letters or numbers.
Significant difficulty in understanding verbal language
Abnormal social skills, difficulty in socializing and interacting appropriately with people

In addition, some children who are hyperlexic may exhibit the following characteristics:
Learn expressive language in a peculiar way, echo ro memorize the sentence structure without understanding the meaning (echolalia), reverse pronouns
Rarely initiates conversations
An intense need to keep routines, difficulty with transitions, ritualistic behavior
Auditory, olfactory and / or tactile sensitivity
Self-stimulatory behavior
specific, unusual fears
Normal development until 18-24 months, then regression
strong auditory and visual memory
Difficulty answering "Wh--" questions, such as "what," "where," "who," and "why"
Think in concrete and literal terms, difficulty with abstract concepts
Listen selectively, appear to be deaf

Anyway I am 21 years old and hyperlexia spectrum are supposed to leave at a certain age . I have synasestesia and I associate words, shapes, numbers with tastes and textures. The difference between me and an most of aspies is that I READ EVERYTHING, COUNT EVERYTHING. My brother suffered with hyperlexia he still reads 100 books a year, but he is normal now, he gets related normally to people, we teased ourvelves with scientific names of animals(latin) at age 12.

But unlike him I don't get along with people normally, I have a strange behaviour, also I am not limited to a field he was good at math and linguistics and he's doing language arts. I am in the third college and it complicates my life that I cannot finnish any, I always quit, apply to another and get furious with some teachers "because they are wrong". People say I move and do expressions like Tim Burton's Corpse Brid, I act in a non natural way also that my intonation is eccentric, overwhelmed or pedantic, like I am cheering or yelling, but never talking. The romance languages emphasize the vowells, they mark the rythm of your speech, and maybe to a foreign we sound like we are "singing" words. But I sing too much. "I speeeeak this waaaaaaay." I exaggerated and distorted my own language and my brother also, we are foreigns in our country and foreigns to other portuguese speakers.

Can someone be Aspie, ADHD and hyperlexic at the same time? I have small lesions in the perital and frontal lobes, a sensibility to colours and sounds and textures. There are people that when I think about they bring a taste to my mouth, I also have to put things in my mouth sometimes , when I was a child my mother caught me chewing a cockroach.

I love music and have studied 3 intruments, right now I foccus on the fiddle, I also paint realistic and everybody says "that's not asperger".

But I have a routine, rituals, and compulsions, poor social skills, I communicate very well but people are never interestead except the teachers. I am good at linguistics and calculating, not aspergers, and I can create figures of language, but I don't understand other's figures of speech, except if it's a movie. I've never payed attention to a single class my whole life and taught myself at home, which is a characteristic of hyperlexia, the same way me and my brother taugh ourselves foreign languages and how to read. Hard to have a teacher that can make me pay attention, except he/she has a voice I like according to my standard of "nice voice" even so I won't look at him and draw during his/her teaching, it has been a problem and in school I was sent to the principal for doing that. Some people say I am a genius(I don't think I am REALLY) and others that I am a ret*d, but ret*d happens most.

I am like extremely extreme in everything. One funny situation was that I was doing a test and I knew it was my birthday and then I asked to someone what day is today? I couldn't relate my brithday to the day I was born. But my life is realting words, numbers, colours. So that was an irony that I couldn't o it to myself. I can't do most of things NTs do like driving a car and finding my way home, remeber how how to cook. If I had a movie to describe my life I'd say "Almost anything Tim Burton" is he autistic?

At age 12 I watched Edward Sciccorhands there's a scene he cuts his father's hands and his father is made of wax. I couldn't understand it was a dream, it was shocking to see him killing his father. Everybody told me "Hold on it's just a dream, he's not doing that". Hyperlexic children associate can't differ real things from fake things just looking at them, that's why tehy have to come close and touch and slick, when I was a kid, dolls were humans and that frightened me. Now as a grown up I understood what he meant in Edward Scissorhands, his hands was his words and my hands are mine and his words hurt his father for always being sincere and objetive.

People say that aspies see the world in black and white(I read it on a topic here). But I see it in waves (spectrum eletromagnetic), colours and sounds. There are movies like Amelie, Big Fish, Edward Scissorhands and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, that I identify myself with without paying attention to the story, I don't have to connect it to like. As an adult I'd say hyperlexia is like a TO ME is like Brilliant Mind without the Squizophrenia and the Nobel prize. And yeah I relate my ages to scents, like "it smelss like when I was 4", but I don't remeber the facts of when I was four. Sometimes I eat something and say "it tastes like a cockroach" I actually maybe ate some.

I am not trying to scare anyone. I live in a country that unfortunatelly have few phychiatrist or professionals that work with spectrums of autism. When they mentioned syndrome of willians here I have remembered that I am friendly in an annoying wayto some people and cold/dark/anti social to others tehy say "I said hello and you didn't say nothing", but I don't remeber that also I don't have a low IQ. I never know what's really going on. When I am laughing it's wrong, if I am thinking or getting concentrated a brazilian comes and say "what's your problem, do you have any pain? Are you angry? What's your problem?". Brazilians are teh people taht approach and talk to strangers as they have always known you. I tend to lock myself in bathrooms to run away. But I have faced that because I am an adult, and I learned to explain i SAY LAUGHING OUT LOUD: "NO I WAS JUST THINKING!!" Like I ressurected from the dead. And then the Brazilian gets scared. My brother and I were hyperlexic, but my brother acts like an NT, he passes by people as a normal person. And in my case people get curious and yes, I have a phobia with questions, that's why I run away from colleges, people and lock myself in the bathroom.

I think i have hyperlexia. However I haven't been diagnosed with anything as of yet. Trying to find someone who can.

I actualy came across hyperlexia when I was reading up on language and reading learning in children. This is why I think I have hyperlexia too.

1. I can never remember looking at words and not knowing what they meant, I could read before anyone taught me at school.

2. I have many of the AS traits such as lack of social skills, sensory issues, stims etc.

3. I have an obsession with numbers and letters. I run my whole life around them. I even make descions according to the date and its corrapsonding letter. I carry a 20 sided die around me where ever I go. I love it. I have recently been hooked on magic hexagons too. I took up latin for awhile at uni and did very well however I had to get realistic as I have a family and latin doesn't pay bills. I used to invent my own language when I was a child. I had an obsession with names all my life. Sometimes people dont suit there names so I call them what I think they should be called instead. I am constantly searching letter/number patterns out and this really makes me happy, when I can make patterns out of numbers on anything. (By the way...can you spell? I can't very well which I have always found puzzling since I can read so well).

There are also a few things I identify in your post. The singing like voice. Sometimes I seem to stress the wrong words Ive been told.

Some people I dont like just because there voice doesn't flow right.

I HATE people asking me the W questions. Especially people I don't know very well and especially when I have alot going on around me.

I hide alot. The world overwhelms me. I try though. Alot.

Nearly all people with this have Autistic Disorder (I don't know about the prevalence with Asperger's, but I haven't seen it mentioned), that's why it lists symptoms that are the same as Autism in many ways (the people who have these symptoms but don't have Autism seem to have a less severe form of Autism).

It's more of a special ability that's associated with Autism rather than a disorder by itself, like calendar calculation.

ME: A precocious ability to read words, far above what would be expected at their chronological age or an intense fascination with letters or numbers.

ME: Significant difficulty in understanding verbal language

ME: Abnormal social skills, difficulty in socializing and interacting appropriately with people

VHuh:?! Learn expressive language in a peculiar way, echo ro memorize the sentence structure without understanding the meaning (echolalia), reverse pronouns

ME: Rarely initiates conversations

ME: An intense need to keep routines, difficulty with transitions, ritualistic behavior

ME: Auditory, olfactory and / or tactile sensitivity
Self-stimulatory behavior

ME: specific, unusual fears

ME: Normal development until 18-24 months, then regression

ME: strong auditory and visual memory

ME: Difficulty answering "Wh--" questions, such as "what," "where," "who," and "why"

NOT ME: Think in concrete and literal terms, difficulty with abstract concepts

ME: Listen selectively, appear to be deaf

I have wondered whether I was mildly hyperlexic.
It would explain some of the ways I was when I was in a child.
I read before I entered school...but I was such a difficult student that the teacher could not figure out what reading group to put me in because my comprehension in the context of the class was so poor...At home, I would read huge stacks of books and at school I was in a complete fog...unable to pay attention or follow directions....so maybe hyperlexia might explain some of the ways I was as a kid.

Taly, I am over twice as old as you...

ME:A precocious ability to read words, far above what would be expected at their chronological age or an intense fascination with letters or numbers.
NOT ME:Significant difficulty in understanding verbal language
ME:Abnormal social skills, difficulty in socializing and interacting appropriately with people

NOT ME:Learn expressive language in a peculiar way, echo ro memorize the sentence structure without understanding the meaning (echolalia), reverse pronouns
ME:Rarely initiates conversations
ME:An intense need to keep routines, difficulty with transitions, ritualistic behavior
ME:Auditory, olfactory and / or tactile sensitivity (At this point, it is mostly auditory/visual/olfactory in that order)
ME:Self-stimulatory behavior
KIND OF:specific, unusual fears
NOT ME:Normal development until 18-24 months, then regression
ME:strong auditory and visual memory
NOT ME:Difficulty answering "Wh--" questions, such as "what," "where," "who," and "why"
ME:Think in concrete and literal terms,
NOT ME:difficulty with abstract concepts
ME: Listen selectively, appear to be deaf

BTW Compare hyperlexia to the AS description! There is a LOT of overlap!

Another characteristic that differs hyperlexics from aspies, is the fact we can break our routine if something "hipnotizes" us. That's why we get so confused with ADHD. Also the self-stimulations, I taught myself how to paint, foreign languages (yes I can spell 4 of them), etc.

I met other 2 adults with hyperlexia(since it's an spectrum for kids that is supposed to leave in a certain age)
and we found something in common :

-we hear sounds nobody is hearing like mosquitos very out loud, but we listen to people without listening to them, like they are the soundtrack of a movie, we are appreciating their voices but we are paying attention to something else. Also vibrations, the neighbours food mixer that's interrupting our reading.

-People say something and we only remeber the other day or hours later, minutes later. Echolalia happens a lot, we are reading they come and say "Let's go to the mall", we repeat "let's go to the mall", - that's when I invert the prnoums-, but you keep reading and don't go to the mall.

- The bizarre thing: To be hipnotized by eletromagnetic spectrums waves (colours and sounds) that distract us, it only happen in those who have small lesions like me, my friends who share this spectrum had accidents in their childhood and have been put under, ran over by a car. One of them hear imaginary music all the time, so she has to play or hear real music. Under the condition of certain sounds and colours you can be inducted to see lights, colours and distort the world that's why I compare my childhood to the movie Big Fish by Tim Burton. It happens in NTs when they see "stars"

- The ability to self stimulate yourself in a unhuman way.


- The ability to create your own dialect what happens between me and my brother. Both hyperlexic. But he left the spectrums of "visible" autism.


I hate when they say Hyperlexic ARE TEH SO CALLED STORY TELLERS. Yes, they have an ability to imagine things and day-dream a lot and use more figure of languages than the others. But I hate the fact they are called liers. And also that many psychiatrist say they are almost eschizophrenic. Hyperlexic are born this way such as aspies. When when we grow we interpretate our own reality. And esquizo doesn't know what comes from his, an hyperlexic knows.


When I was 12 I talked to swedish kids. At age 19 I talked to a norweagean and he started writting words in norwegean on msn, I won't say I understood exactly what he was saying. But I had an idea and answered him in english, he got surprised " I didn't know you spoke norwegean" I said I don't, of course, I don't speak norwegean. But something in me related his language to swedish that I had contact when I was a child , I only know few sentences.

As a child I was a big story teller..it was a sort of compulsion, but I simply did not know what else to do with the stuff that was in my head..so I would say it out loud as if it was the truth...I was under the delusion that I would be able to write books just as easily as an adult and spent lengthy amounts of time starting these books...I developed a fixation with the library around the 3rd grade...had the dewey decimal system sorta memorised...stuff like that....but oh man...my social skills were abominable....the story telling was a big part of that for me.

Another thing I did was carry a Roget's Theasaurus around with me everywhere I went....

What do you mean by calander calculation? I am sorry, can you define calendar, because I know 3.

I don't have a low IQ like high functioning autistic people have, and I can memorize and read fastly, I just can't memorize daily facts from my own life like the number of bus I have to take and location problems, all my clothes are black, because it's 800thz for me and I already see too much colours and too much sounds. I have phobias and manias and I've always thought that everybody was like me untill age 16. That's why hyperlexia is called down-to-earth you stop acting autistically by a certain age, but my brother and I having the same age, I see that his spectrums are gone, he has a monster IQ and has a normal life and high social skills. He has no more collections or rituals, he is very down-to-earth. So my parents always compare myself to him, he has an scholarship to the best University in Europe to study language arts/linguistics/latin whatever. I had an scholarship at age 11 but parents didn't let me go because I was not so down-to-earth. My brother and I had a similar childhood, an asperger father who is monossilabic, and ADHD mother who is always confusing our names. I don't feel bad for being autistic, but I HATE THIS PRESSURE, and of course I want to find my way and a field, because I have many fields and it's usually "the last book I read". I was very shy and frightened untill age 16, I just got more social but in a way that scares people.

That's sounds hyperlexic at least for me. We all, hyperlexic, aspies, autistics have problems to hear mutual and ping-pong conversations. We like monologues and hate circles of conversations and people talking at the same time. I could read very well in a very dynamic way. But under pressure

The self-stimulation stuff - How did I learn English? At age 10 I went to a christian camp and there were bible competitions. I saw american missionaries kids whispering the answers(bible trivias) to eachother in English, they were cheating, because the other kids couldn't speak english. What language is that? They said "american english" and I said: "Oh really?" I went home and since I didn't pay attention to english classes and had low grades in english, I read my mothers english books and grammar, an a small english dictionary and also a software with the pronnouce of the words. So by age 11, I learned the English I use nowadays, of course I learned another words. But since I haven't studied it, I only use it for internet and TV. I also talked to the pastors and missionaries in English very fluently and undertood their sermons without someone to interpretate. Anyway, that's an spectrum for kids, when you grow up you don't have this abilities as the AHA(American Hyperlexia Society explains). But some of those traces are still left in your adult life, like numbers and words stalking you, phobias. It depends on each individual I believe.

I mean that hyperlexia is a special skill, like calendar calculation is, that people with an ASD may have. Hyperlexia is completely different to calendar calculation, but they manifest in some individuals with an ASD (not at the same time). It's very rare to find these special skills in individuals without an ASD.

If you have Asperger's, I don't think it's impossible for you to also have hyperlexia; it's just that the literature speaks about it in Autistic Disorder rather than Asperger's.

I did some perusing of the 'net just then, and I found people wish to give it its own label under the PDD heading; the things they state for its inclusion are a good verbal ability and a greater desire for social interaction, which sounds just like Asperger's but with a higher verbal ability than even them. It seems to be just another subset that people wish to carve out from Autism, like Asperger's was, now with things like NLD and "hyperlexia".

You said you have an Asperger's label, and that should be enough for any help you need with schooling; if people are putting undue pressure and expectations on you, tell them to mind the disorder you have, and let you go at your pace, as you can't go at anyone else's.

As an aside, people with HFA can have a high IQ; it's just rarely high in the verbal part.

I found this neat little graph from a website on hyperlexia:

According to the graphic I am autistic. But this word scares me to death, you have no idea. Also I don't have an specific field like aspergers do, I just collect data of EVERYTHING and am an artist and a musician with can be associated with lesions in the brain that gave me a ADHD diagnosis, but I am a perfect hyperlexic, but hyperlexic leave those characteristics when grow up and then they have normal lifes.

But everybody here says that HFA have low IQ and mine... goes beyond human average, I don't understand how can I be autistic? I try to not freak out and just be myself. Teachers and parents have too much expectations about me, like everyone tell me to follow a different profession. But I am always dropping the courses because of the pressure and the question "where did you learn all this, explain me this, talk to me, who are you?" And I have to lock myself in the bathroom. I went to law school(here in brazil we don't have common law, so it's code and you have to remind which was easy and don't interpretate that much, like German law), international relations and now I am doing computer science and I HATE THIS PRESSURE. I wish I could do college at home, do the exercices at home, deliver and them I wouldn't have to talk to them. I would have a diploma and do the thing I really like to do. Anyway, I try medical school next year my father is an aspie... he did two colleges medical school and law school. And then he looks at me and says "What's your problem?"

Anyway, thanks for everything Daniel. I like your name very much.

I have a 3 and a half year old daughter who is Autistic and Hyperplexic.....which is strange considering it is rare for a girl to be Hyperplexic. She can not read entire books yet but she is obsessed with numbers and letters and knows them by sight. She is very ritualistic and has the need to count things.
I think Danielismyname is right that Autism and Hyperplexia go hand in hand.

Both of my boys are on the spectrum and are also hyperlexic. I wouldn't have recognized it in my younger son if it hadn't been for my oldest.

My oldest is moderate functioning, but has come a long way. He could count numbers and read numbers and letters, outloud even, before he could speak words. Now because of his cognitive level rising, he can read many rudimentary words. He can spell his name, both on the computer and writing it. He can read simple words like yes or no without ever being told what they are. He's 4 yrs old. Sadly, his preschool teacher doesn't believe it's important to develop these skills since he's still delayed in many other things... Heck, she doesn't even believe he is autistic "just motor delayed."

My younger son (3) has an unusual fascination with numbers. He can count up to 30, then up by tens. He starts saying the numbers wrong after the 20's, but definitely recognizes the number. His language is just not there. Like 56, he says twenty-six five, but he definitely knows the difference between 26-5 and 56. Again, his teacher doesn't think this is an important skill to cultivate and also doesn't believe he's autistic.

People here are talking about hyperlexia. How old is your daughter? BTW a NUMBER of the official hyperlexia characteristics scream AUTISM! A couple others are what really made AS stand out as UNIQUE. So hyperlexia IS clearly connected to both.