Hyperlexia in adulthood
Hyperlexia is a condition marked by three main symptoms:
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Advanced reading ability,
Learning to read abnormally early (usually without explicit teaching) and
A preference for written material, such as novels (Ostrolenk et al., 2017).
Hyperlexic readers might have incredible reading ability, but might struggle with the comprehension or communication aspects of language. For example, a hyperlexic child could easily sound out a new word, but have difficulty understanding its meaning from context (Iftikar, 2020). It’s strongly associated with autism - 84% of hyperlexic people are also autistic (Ostrolenk et al., 2017).
(Some guy called Darold Traffert is widely considered to be an expert on hyperlexia and has created three different categories of hyperlexia. However, everything I’ve read by him has been ableist and disrespectful towards the autistic community, so I’m not going to include that here. If you really want to know ((be prepared for medical model ableism and anti-autistic rhetoric)), Traffert has written a blog for Scientific American.)
While I haven’t been formally diagnosed as hyperlexic (it isn’t it’s own diagnosis, but is considered a sub-type of autism), I relate to a lot of the traits described. I started pointing to letters and reading them at about the age of 2, and by age 6 I was reading the Harry Potter novels on my own. I’ve been writing stories, newsletters and comics for longer than I can remember, and I used to destroy the competition in school or library reading challenges. Written language has been my happy place from a young age.
If you Google ‘hyperlexia’, you’ll quickly find yourself flooded by medical websites using grossly outdated language about autism and blogs by parents simultaneously marvelling at their child’s precociousness and despairing over their (the parent’s) “challenges”. Everything is focused on children of primary school age or younger. However, what you won’t find is any useful information about hyperlexia in adults. As we know, autism and its related symptoms don’t disappear when someone turns 18 years old. To rectify this, I want to talk about my experiences as a hyperlexic adult. (I did ask a few fellow hyperlexic folks to contribute, but I haven’t got anything back, so you’re stuck with me.)
Reading
For me personally, my love for reading that I established as a hyperlexic child has continued well into adulthood. I’m an incredibly fast reader and, thankfully, don’t have the comprehension difficulties that are sometimes associated with hyperlexia. This is a really useful skill in any job, because I can read huge amounts of information and generally retain most of it. (It also means that whenever I’m playing video games I have the text speed set to maximum and I’m smashing the A button whenever I have to interact with an NPC.)
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I’ve always used reading as a way to cope with the difficulties of autistic life, even before I knew that’s what I was doing. As a child, I woke up early and spend an hour or two reading before school every day. Even when I was at uni, I’d often be walking between campuses through Melbourne with a book in front of my face. (Unless you have excellent spatial awareness, I definitely would not recommend this.) As a working adult, reading is still a primary hobby of mine. I spend a lot of time at my local libraries and read over 100 books every year.
If I’m engrossed in what I’m reading, I tend to block out everything happening around me. This is a blessing and a curse - I can focus on a book even in busy environments, but if I’m reading at home and my partner needs something, he could talk for minutes before I even realise he’s addressing me.
Despite my reading ability, large chunks of non-fictional text, like a government report or policy document, are a huge challenge for me. I think that might be partly due to my ADHD - if it’s something I’m bored by, engaging my brain is a challenge in itself. I opened a two-page letter from the bank this morning and could barely force myself to skim read it.
Communicating
One of the most frustrating things I experience as a hyperlexic adult is the disconnect between by writing and verbal ability. I’m confident in my writing ability - given that you’re reading my words right now, I hope you’d agree - but my speaking is nowhere near as eloquent. I can rely on written words and know that I’ll always be able to get my point across. When I’m talking, I forget the end of my sentence, I forget specific words, and I even jumble words together because my mouth just can’t keep up with how fast my brain is going. It’s embarrassing. The more tired I am, the worse it gets. By the end of a school day, I often have to stop mid-sentence and restart from the beginning because I’ve gotten too muddled up to fix it. Writing gives me time to plan what I want to communicate and choose the most effective words to do that. Speaking my words feels like I’m winging it - hoping that my words will come out in the right order and make a modicum of sense.
Another issue hyperlexic people often face is mispronouncing words. We tend to have extensive vocabularies, but most of the words we’ve learnt we learn through reading. I was appalled when I learned how to correctly pronounce ‘epitome’, because I’d been reading it as ‘eppy-tome’ rather than ‘e-pih-toe-me’. I couldn’t count how many times I’ve crafted a verbose, expressive sentence only for it to be met by laughter because I messed up one of the words. The English language is a nightmare at the best of times. For those who learned it primarily through reading, pronouncing words can often feel like a trap.
For me personally, having hyperlexia is a positive experience overall. I receive a great amount of joy from reading that I don’t think many allistic (non-autistic) or neurotypical people get to experience. I think that the sheer volume of books I’ve read, particularly as a child, have helped me to become a more empathetic and intelligent person. There are frustrations, of course, like messing up words or having to wait for others to catch up. Regardless of how I feel about it, hyperlexia is a part of me and how my brain works, and I wouldn’t change it even if I could.
References
Ostrolenk, A., Forgeot d’Arc, B., Jelenic, P., Samson, F., & Mottron, L. (2017). Hyperlexia: Systematic review, neurocognitive modelling, and outcome. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 79, 134-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.04.029
Iftikar, N. (2020, May 28). Hyperlexia: Signs, Diagnosis, and Treatment. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/hyperlexia
