Reading Disorders: Dyslexia and Hyperlexia...

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Sophist
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29 May 2009, 12:54 pm

I was just wondering what your experiences are with reading. Do you have hyperlexia? Dyslexia? How is your word pronunciation versus your reading comprehension? Do you have any problems writing, etc.?

I'm just curious if WPers could give their personal experiences on the matter, whether you're dxed hyperlexic, dyslexic, suspect your either, neither, whatever. Be as descriptive as you like, the more the better. :) I'm going to be writing a paper involving autism and dyslexia and am wanting to get some ideas, see what real people actually experience rather than just sticking with the "professional" literature, ya know?

None of this will be published. I'm just using it for my own personal brainstorming.

Thanks in advance! :D


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Last edited by Sophist on 29 May 2009, 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sophist
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29 May 2009, 1:05 pm

Oh, thought you may also find the following list of symptoms of "Reading Disorder" (which as you can tell is defined EXTREMELY broadly) helpful for starting you off:

* difficulty identifying single words
* problems understanding sounds in words, sound order, or rhymes
* problems with spelling
* transposing letters in words
* omitting or substituting words
* poor reading comprehension
* slow reading speed (oral or silent)

And some other traits often found with RD:

* delays in spoken language
* confusion with directions, or right-/left-handedness
* confusion with opposites
* mathematics disorder
* disorder of written expression


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ThatRedHairedGrrl
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29 May 2009, 1:55 pm

Can someone define hyperlexia for me, please? It's an aspect of AS I didn't find out about until fairly recently, and I'm still uncertain as to whether it really applies to me.

I learned to read before I was three years old, have always had a reading age well in advance of my chronological age, and it's a running joke in my family that I can't sit at the breakfast table without reading the back of the cereal packet. I've several times in my life attempted to create languages of my own, and I learn words in obscure languages just for the heck of it. I've always been fascinated by words, their sounds, their origins, their meanings and the connections between them.

I am evidently a very verbal gerbil. But I don't know if any of this is unusual enough, 'extreme' enough if you like, to count as hyperlexia.


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Sophist
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29 May 2009, 2:41 pm

It seems like the professional community is unable to come up with more precise definitions for hyperlexia and dyslexia. However, as close as I've been able to come to regarding hyperlexia, it's considered a precocious reading ability with or without reading comprehension ability. Apparently, there is a large subset of hyperlexics who can read phonetically but have deficits in actually understanding what they're reading. However, there do seem to be hyperlexics with average or above average comprehension as well, so the accompanying deficit in reading comprehension is optional. It also doesn't necessitate that the person is completely unable to comprehend what they're reading, but the level of comprehension frequently doesn't match the superior ability of phonetic reading.


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Alice1-1
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29 May 2009, 2:52 pm

I had this as a child. I was called the walking dictionary by my friends at school and I could read off the scale at the age of 7 or 8. I could deconstruct any word automatically in my head and explain its meaning. I learned and remember every word of a foreign language I ever heard and it all gets cross-referenced in my head. I had - and still have - to some degree - problems with left and right and disgusting handwriting.



Sophist
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29 May 2009, 7:19 pm

Alice1-1 wrote:
I had this as a child. I was called the walking dictionary by my friends at school and I could read off the scale at the age of 7 or 8. I could deconstruct any word automatically in my head and explain its meaning. I learned and remember every word of a foreign language I ever heard and it all gets cross-referenced in my head. I had - and still have - to some degree - problems with left and right and disgusting handwriting.


Was your reading comprehension at the same level as your ability to read?


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EvoVari
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29 May 2009, 8:37 pm

Not sure what I would be diagnosed with relating to my Learning difficulties.

Reading has always been a challenge, silently extremely slow, loosing place, word for word, not understanding the content & re-read passages and get fatigued/exhausted easily after a short time. If I read aloud, I'm reasonably fluent. Comprehension and spelling is poor.

Mathematics is an issue with understanding problem solving questions. Geometry, trigonometry and Map reading is extremely difficult.

Recently did a number of tests to evaluate my Learning difficulties.
1/ Visual- Motor Intergration(V.M.I.): Approached the task in a relective manner? Lack attention to detail & demonstarated difficulty with 3 dimensional shapes. Performance below average.

2/ Speed & Accuracy of Visual Capture: Was able to capture up to 5 random letters, however had difficulty when more than three 3-letter words were presented sequentially. This makes it very difficult to process written language because I can only process 3 words at a time.

3/ Wachs-Shanks Block Test: This test probes your ability to visualise by presenting block patterns that have to be flipped hrizontally or vertically. My performance was below average. Approached task in a reflective manner but was unable to duplicate a four piece pattern & attempted many of the flipped patterns. Used many hand gestures to mentally manipulate them & was observed tp physically flipp some of the shapes when creating the pattern in the new orientation(NOT ALLOWED)

4/ Visual Memory & Visual Sequential Memory: To evaluate my ability to recognise and recall visually presented information, both spacially & sequentiall. Visual Figure-ground is to evaluate my ability to attend to specific feature of form while maintaining an awareness of the relationship of this form to the background.
Each of these skills are all important in order for one to 'learning to read' and 'reading to learn' efficiently.
Performed below average for all subtests.

5/ Visagraph:
1st Reading results
169 fixations per 100 words (Expected: less than or equal to 77)
44 regressions per 100 words ( Less than or equal to 11)
Reading rate (Words per minute) 171 ( equal to or higher than 340)
No. of start time differences b/t eyes:95 ( <10)
Comprhension 70% ( 80%+)

2nd Reading results
209 fixations per 100 words
69 regressions per 100
Reading rate 162
No. of start 100
Comprehension 80%
Reading simulation showed my return sweep to the beginning of each line of print was inacurate on every line. The above results indicate poor eye movement control for reading, leeds to slow reading rate and hence poor reading comprehension.

Vision therapy: Areas to be emphasised will include speed processing, visual analysis skills, saccadic eye movements and visual spatial skill.

Performed an IQ test during High School- Above average in Mechanical Apptitude.

Any comments appreciated.



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29 May 2009, 8:50 pm

I started learning to read before I was 2, and I was reading and writing stories in my home language before I went to school. By the age of 7 I was writing stories in English too.

As a child, I was really into codes, ciphers and secret writing. I taught myself the Cyrillic alphabet and still sometimes write reminder notes for myself in Cyrillic. I made up many alphabets of my own too. Pages and pages of matrices. I could solve substition ciphers too, provided that they were in English.

I speak four languages more or less, and know bits and pieces from several others.When I was 12 I got a book on languages of the world and I read it cover to cover many times. I also had an obsession with the etymology of personal names for decades.

I too was called a walking dictionary at school. It made me feel sad. It made me feel left out. I didn't really want to be like them, I just wanted them to accept me.

I never learned to read very fast, though. A recent speed-reading course has helped a bit.

One of the big tragedies of my life was that I married a dyslexic and we didn't know it was dyslexia. I was always trying to teach him, my way. I only really learned to understand some of our differences nearly 20 years after we met, a year before we divorced. I can't imagine how it might have changed things if we had known back then that I was an Aspie.


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pensieve
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29 May 2009, 9:18 pm

Sophist wrote:
Oh, thought you may also find the following list of symptoms of "Reading Disorder" (which as you can tell is defined EXTREMELY broadly) helpful for starting you off:

* difficulty identifying single words
* problems understanding sounds in words, sound order, or rhymes
* problems with spelling
* transposing letters in words
* omitting or substituting words
* poor reading comprehension
* slow reading speed (oral or silent)

And some other traits often found with RD:

* delays in spoken language
* confusion with directions, or right-/left-handedness
* confusion with opposites
* mathematics disorder
* disorder of written expression


I think I have mild dyslexia. I used to get sore eyes, blurry vision from reading, read words backwards or skip words completely. Since I got glasses my eyes aren't that sore but I at times still blur my words and have those other problems I wrote above. I suspect I have Irlen's syndrome. I have to wear my glasses even outside.
As a child my reading comprehension was very poor. These days it's getting better but I have to re-read something a few times to get it to stick. My comprehension with reading fictional books is better than with say an article from a Science magazine, even though I have an interest in science.
I think I have a mathematics disorder. I can't do math above year 6 level, despite me trying to re-learn year 7 maths. Either I just get too bored with it or it just doesn't stick in my mind.
When I was younger I wouldn't know which was left or right and had trouble with opposites. When I speak I sometimes do say the opposite word to what I was going to say.

I also had difficulty reading at 5. I remember reading sob as bos and writing my b's as d's. I was always a bit behind. I remember reading a Goosebumps book and these girls a few years younger than me read them faster. Now I read fast because I read a lot.


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Last edited by pensieve on 29 May 2009, 10:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MJIthewriter
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29 May 2009, 9:48 pm

I'm slow at reading and tend to skip lines and tire out/ get really sleepy. But if I took the time to read, I could remember a good bit of what I read. When I am reading a narrative, I tend to recreate a mental movie in my head and see it visually. That movie is what I remember. With some books I read sometimes it is hard for me to tell if I actually watched a movie of the book or I'm replaying bits that I made up in my imagination when I read the book.

I think I may have a bit of dyslexia... Spelling and handwriting has also been a problem. It's fairly obvious when I type if I've used the spellchecker or not. Reading on the internet is interestingly easier. I think it's because I can use the mouse cursor to help keep my eye where it needs to be.



buryuntime
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29 May 2009, 10:08 pm

I'm able to read very quickly and my spelling tests as superior, so I do not think I have any kind of reading disorder. My reading comprehension as in being tested over what I've read isn't quite as good, however, but I believe that has to with not relating to characters as well or being able to identify emotions as well...

I found this odd on wikipedia:

Quote:
Most or perhaps all children with hyperlexia also lie on the autism spectrum.



Lecks
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29 May 2009, 10:13 pm

My reading speed is average, my comprehension is above average. I'm very good at quickly grasping the over-all plot of a story.



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30 May 2009, 7:29 am

I'm noticing an underlying theme of poorer comprehension as compared to the level of reading. Interesting. :)

Q: For those who've answered above or anyone else who wants to chime in: Do you find that some of your comprehension problems are due to the slowness and difficulty it takes in translating words into imagery so you can fully understand them? And if so, do you end up finding familiar concrete texts easier to understand than unfamiliar or abstract texts (e.g., a Harry Potter book versus reading a Philosophical text like Nietzsche)?

buryuntime wrote:
I found this odd on wikipedia:

Quote:
Most or perhaps all children with hyperlexia also lie on the autism spectrum.


Yes, part of my paper is actually going to be focusing on this in that there are likely similar underlying neuroanatomical and functional causes to autism and hyperlexia, which would be why hyperlexia occurs so frequently with ASCs.


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30 May 2009, 12:17 pm

Okay, I would like to mention this. I believe it is very UNLIKELY those of you mentioning dyslexia and having vision/reading problems have dyslexia. What I would like everybody to investigate is Nonverbal learning disorder's learning and reading disorder components. Alot of people here are describing visual tracking issues. Honestly see a neurologist, get this diagnosed and get occupational therapy, because with proper OT there is a big quality of life jump. Most of the visual and reading problems I read on WP are related to NLD, NOT dyslexia. I am not going to go into why, but dyslexia is very rare for people on the spectrum while some form of NLD is very common.

By the way I have hyperlexia, NLD and semantic pragmatic disorder. Huge vocabulary, had problems with comprehension. When writing I have some issues. People who know me call me a walking encyclopedia, not dictionary.



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30 May 2009, 3:12 pm

starygrrl wrote:
Okay, I would like to mention this. I believe it is very UNLIKELY those of you mentioning dyslexia and having vision/reading problems have dyslexia. What I would like everybody to investigate is Nonverbal learning disorder's learning and reading disorder components. Alot of people here are describing visual tracking issues. Honestly see a neurologist, get this diagnosed and get occupational therapy, because with proper OT there is a big quality of life jump. Most of the visual and reading problems I read on WP are related to NLD, NOT dyslexia. I am not going to go into why, but dyslexia is very rare for people on the spectrum while some form of NLD is very common.

By the way I have hyperlexia, NLD and semantic pragmatic disorder. Huge vocabulary, had problems with comprehension. When writing I have some issues. People who know me call me a walking encyclopedia, not dictionary.


I agree that people should investigate visual tracking issues to verify whether this is the cause of their reading difficulty-- although there is one hypothesis about dyslexia that posits dyslexia is in fact due to deficits in visual tracking. It's called the Magnocellular Theory of Dyslexia.

However, I do disagree that dyslexia and autism occur together very rarely. The big issue is that "Reading Disorder" is incredibly vague, as is the definition of the more commonly used term "dyslexia". In the DSM, there is no official classification called "dyslexia". Therefore, part of my disagreement with your argument stems from the inherent lack of defining dyslexia in the first place. Here is the current DSM criteria, and while the DSM is known for its vague behavioral lists, this list in particular is the pinnacle of imprecision:

DSM wrote:
A. Reading achievement, as measured by individually administered standardized tests of reading accuracy or comprehension, is substantially below that expected given the person's chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education.

B. The disturbance in Criterion A significantly interferes with academic achievement or activities of daily living that require reading skills.

C. If a sensory deficit is present, the reading difficulties are in excess of those usually associated with it.


Essentially, anything which leads to a disturbance in reading proficiency could feasibly be contained under "Reading Disorder". Part of my paper is actually going to cover this definitional dilemma, and it will also be covering the idea that autism and the "traditional" form of dyslexia do not occur together because they have very different underlying causes (which is the point of the manuscript); however, BEHAVIORALLY they can still present similarly or even identically when it comes to reading deficits-- meaning that autism itself can bring with it inherent deficits in reading and language which can behaviorally mimic those found in typical dyslexia. So for the time being, while reading disorder/dyslexia are still behaviorally defined, as is autism, then the two conditions can most certainly occur together. In their traditional forms, however, they do not likely have the same causes.

In this case, if it walks like a dyslexic duck, talks like a dyslexic duck, it may in fact be autistic.


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30 May 2009, 3:32 pm

Well, I've been reading since before I was four, always read ahead of my age group, pronounced in the old fashioned(say the few decades before 1980) middle class west white american way. I specify all that because there is really no other way to properly describe it. AND, although I may sometimes spell a word like colour, it doesn't mean I can't read color.

When I was younger, I DID have a bit of trouble discerning how some characters were made, a DYSLEXIC symptom, but I don't know if I have it. Just yesterday, I got a fax on my computer for my mother, and read it to her even though it was upside down. I didn't have the time to figure how to have the computer to flip it.

I ALSO sometimes read signs on windows from the wrong side.

So, I guess you can diagnose me how you want. Oh yeah, WELCOME BACK!