Reading Disorders: Dyslexia and Hyperlexia...

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Sophist
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30 May 2009, 4:19 pm

2ukenkerl wrote:
Oh yeah, WELCOME BACK!


Hey, ukenkerl, thanks. Maybe sometime in the near future I can welcome you back to Gestalt as well, eh? ;)


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p2007t
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30 May 2009, 4:50 pm

(Dreamwalker from the chat)

I'm a math person. I've never been a huge fan of reading, although I did read much more than average when I was young because my family encouraged me to do so, although I do recall occasionally resorting to a "skimming" reflex when I just wanted to be done with the book.

In middle school, we had some program called "Accelerated Reader," so again we were forced to read more than I would've liked, but this time I was tested on the books. I'm terrible at memorizing the details of books, so I didn't do as well on the tests as my peers (although to be fair, my friends were among the better readers at the school). But I got by without too many issues.

In highschool, there was no more "Accelerated Reader," so all I had to read was what was required of me by classes (and that's basically the only books I did read, except for maybe 1 or 2 others). After going through hell in 10th grade (getting low F's on War and Peace quizes and high A's on essays, balancing out to a C altogether), I dropped from Gifted English down to Honors English so that I would have less work and better grades.

Now that I'm in college, most of what I read is on the internet. I read very little actual literature, although I will have to take a literature class some semester, and I'm dreading that. My mind just can't focus on ink on a page for very long nowadays. I'd much rather watch a movie or think up something in my own head.

No problems with dyslexia or anything like that...

It should be noted that I have never been tested for any reading disability, nor have I ever been tested for Aspergers or HFA (HFA describes me more appropriately IMO, but no matter what label I'm given, I am who I am).



FireBird
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30 May 2009, 9:20 pm

I believe I have Hyperlexia. I was reading before 3 years of age. Knew my alphabet at 18 months (or earlier). When I first started reading, my reading comprehension was lower than pronouncing the words. Now my reading comprehension is the same level, aka doctor level. Yes, I know as much as a psychologist!!



Sophist
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01 Jun 2009, 7:15 am

bump :mrgreen:


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obnoxiously-me
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01 Jun 2009, 3:57 pm

I have dyslexia in that I can't spell. I simply can't spell, and it doesn't matter if they are complicated words or simple words. It's easier in English than my native language, but bad here too.

However, I read very fast, both in Norwegian and English.

I have a family history of dyslexia, though.



typ3
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01 Jun 2009, 4:53 pm

Average reader here. 8)


I read just as fast as I can read out loud in my head. For larger or complicated sentences I'll often have to re-read to feel like I'm fully comprehending the material. If I'm reading some hard non-fiction, I'll usually re-read about every other paragraph. Absorbing meaning is extremely simple but specifics such as names almost never register. I think this is more of a memory problem than a comprehension problem though.

Metaphorical tone in philosophy for example has always been naturally easy to understand, but I'll also get muddled up easily with phrases that can be looked at from multiple perspectives, sometimes leaving me debating about it in my head for 10 minutes. This isn't at all limited to reading. My catchphrase used to be, "It depends on the perspective you take." :lol:

Occasionally I'll skip over words and catch the fact that the sentence made no sense, or fill it in with a word that wasn't there that I was expecting and make sense of it in a way not intended at all.

Most of the time when I'm reading fiction, I have no imagery at all. If someone was to ask what a certain character looked like after I got done reading a book, I would reflect and build the character right there instead of having one already made out.

I rewrite most of the sentences I write or type and get very aggravated by the "first draft" writing if I can't rewrite. Almost always I'll find a way a sentence could be better worded.



Last edited by typ3 on 01 Jun 2009, 5:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

buryuntime
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01 Jun 2009, 5:05 pm

Quote:
Most of the time when I'm reading fiction, I have no imagery at all. If someone was to ask what a certain character looked like after I got done reading a book, I would reflect and build the character right there instead of having one already made out.

This is the same for me. I pretty much skip over the names also and who is doing what. I figure out who is doing what by their actions and I do not visualize what they look like, ever.



Callista
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01 Jun 2009, 5:08 pm

With regards to hyperlexia--what do you do if you're reading at a college level and comprehending at a 6th grade level when you are in the 3rd grade? Your comprehension does lag behind your reading skill, but it doesn't lag behind your peers' reading skill. I know you can diagnose dyslexia in a gifted child reading at grade level if his ability to understand and use the material is far beyond his reading ability; does it work that way with hyperlexia, too?

I only have to meet a word once to know it. I can read, phonetically, even when I can't understand something. Right now I can read anything written in English, and comprehend anything written at a college level (any subject) or post-grad level (my specialties). So yeah--my ability to understand lags behind my ability to de-code. But it always has. Is it hyperlexia if I can still comprehend what I'm expected to?

Oddly enough, reading out loud sometimes confuses me because I have to speak at the same time as reading. To me, they're different procedures. A written word is a written word, and doesn't need to be translated to speech to be understandable; so reading out loud requires an extra step.


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Sophist
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03 Jun 2009, 2:21 pm

Right now I believe the criteria for hyperlexia might miss over people who are above average in both phonological reading and reading comprehension but where phonology (pronunciation) is far above comprehension levels. Right now, it still seems to largely be defined as a savant-like skill, with some of the potential deficits in reading being overlooked.

If I had to give my personal opinion, in any case where reading comprehension lags behind phonological ability by, say 1 or 2 standard deviations, it should be considered a deficit, even if it is still above average. It's clearly below average for that particular person.

A good analogy to use would probably be Verbal IQ score and Performance IQ score. If either one is separated by at least 1 standard deviation from the other, even if both are above average, then there is a "learning disability".


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Niamh
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25 Feb 2011, 12:28 pm

I suspect I have hyperlexia. While my spelling, pronunciation and decoding of words is very good and was always ahead of the rest of my age group in school, I have always struggled a lot with comprehension and retention of what I'm reading. My eyes jump all over the page when I try to read. They jump from random word to random word and I have to work very hard to read words in the right order. Then, even if I manage to do that, I struggle to remember anything I've just read and have to read several times over. I also can't seem to absorb the meaning of what I'm reading at the same time as reading it. It's a pain when I depend on written communication so much, e.g. these forums. I could read a paragraph aloud, with punctuation and expression, accidentally skipping a word here and there maybe but with no other problems really, and yet if anyone asked me a question on what I'd just read I probably couldn't answer it. It was always a relief in school that the teachers never asked the reader questions, but the listeners!

When it comes to writing, I seem to have trouble getting my hand to move the way I want it to. I try to write a series of short letters like "a" and "c" and "v", but they barely come out as more than a bit of a wavy line. I try to write some tall letters like "l" and "k" and "d", but my hand jerks out and makes them way bigger than intended and makes them look like some other letter instead, so I have to cross it out and try again. I got correction fluid banned in my school as a kid because I was using so much of it my teacher could no longer read my work. I also struggle to get the words and letters down in the right order, even when typing. Another reason for having to cross out words, or sometimes whole lines, and start again.

I rarely read back over my writing because of all this. And I bet I've lost out on marks in various different assignments over time because of it. I end up holding my pens and pencils excessively tight, or leaning on the paper excessively hard, which is not healthy especially for a musician. I spend about as much time reading questions as I do answering them. And it's painful getting so exhausted by it when I, like many others here, depend rather heavily on the internet for socializing and for finding helpful information.



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25 Feb 2011, 1:46 pm

I was in learning disabled classes for English from 2nd grade through HS graduation. I assume the diagnosis was dyslexia, but they never said. This was back when people were all into not labeling.

My issues are probably more related to NLD than true dyslexia. I have visual acuity, tracking, and recall issues.

* I get tired very quickly when reading.
* Words used to wiggle on the page when I was younger.
* I lose my place all the time.
* I have absolutely no non-verbal working memory (can't see any images, at all. in my mind).

I'm also missing a filter to prevent tangental thinking... causing me to frequently not be linking about what I'm reading.



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25 Feb 2011, 2:15 pm

Sophist wrote:
Right now I believe the criteria for hyperlexia might miss over people who are above average in both phonological reading and reading comprehension but where phonology (pronunciation) is far above comprehension levels. Right now, it still seems to largely be defined as a savant-like skill, with some of the potential deficits in reading being overlooked.

If I had to give my personal opinion, in any case where reading comprehension lags behind phonological ability by, say 1 or 2 standard deviations, it should be considered a deficit, even if it is still above average. It's clearly below average for that particular person.

A good analogy to use would probably be Verbal IQ score and Performance IQ score. If either one is separated by at least 1 standard deviation from the other, even if both are above average, then there is a "learning disability".


This is me as well. My reading ability definitely exceeded my comprehension, although my comprehension was probably above that of my peers. This discrepancy managed to cause me a decent amount of trouble as a child and into my teens. I'm not sure when the two evened out. I know that my reading ability in first grade was measured at college level, but I do not know what my comprehension measured at. I just knew that I didn't know what all the words I knew how to read meant, and that I used them based on context rather than meaning.



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25 Feb 2011, 2:42 pm

I can relate to a lot of the stuff about hyperlexia, EXCEPT that I didn't read early. In fact, I was a bit slow learning to read at first. In first grade I had some trouble with it. However, once it all "clicked" for me my reading ability was always super high for my age. My Mom always says that I can spell pretty much anything, and even before I could read I knew a lot of facts about various things. I also have trouble with left and right, and always have to ask myself which hand I write with when I need to tell the difference. I don't know what this means about me.



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25 Feb 2011, 3:55 pm

I don't consider hyperlexia a disorder.
I have it; I said my first word before I turned six months old and I was talking in complete sentences by nearly two years of age. I showed an interest in the alphabet and reading before I turned two years old, though I was almost four before I taught myself to do so (read.)



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25 Feb 2011, 4:07 pm

As far as I can tell I'm hyperlexic. I started reading early and was obsessed even by literature I couldn't understand (I was surprisingly good at pronunciation and comprehension was somewhat lower). I have always been an expert speller, I think it relates to my eye for detail. I did come up with some idiosyncratic pronunciations for things because I'd read words and hear the same words but not make the connection (it took me forever to realize "mysterious" was pronounced the way it is, even though I heard people saying the word all the time). Oddly, I also thought "certainly" was pronounced with a 'k" sound for a while although I knew what it meant both on the page and in the way it was spoken, I just thought of them as two different words, my mind didn't make the connection.