Interesting series of articles on an Asperchild

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An interesting three-part series recently appearing in The Dallas Morning News:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 36536.html

See the "ABOUT THIS SERIES" box for the other two articles in the series.

I found it heartwarming to read how Jessie has blossomed in such a wonderfully supportive environment. She's really fortunate to have good parents and be in such a good school. I hope her middle school experience will be equally successful.

I can identify a bit with Jessie in that I think I might have been a hyperlexic child as well. I recall my 5th grade class being tested for reading skills and finding out that I read at the 11th grade, 7th month level. Trouble was, there was no such diagnosis as Asperger's at the time (this was about 45 years ago), and unlike Jessie, I didn't have any support at all from teachers/parents/schoolmates. Looking back, I think they pretty much didn't know what to do with me...

That sounds like me... My reading skills were tested in kindergarten, and my reading skills were higher than the test could measure (it only went up to 7th grade level). But apparently nobody suspected Asperger's (even though this wasn't that long ago), so they decided I was just a smart kid who cried too much. And nobody at my school wanted the trouble of teaching a smart kid (let alone one who cried too much), so I was expected to just sit quietly and do what everybody else was doing, and ignore that I was bored out of my skull. (So I had to learn to read, because that was what the rest of the class was doing, even though I'd been reading for years... )

In sixth grade, my vocabulary scores were those of a senior in high school. This was long before AS was recognized as a diagnosis.

In fourth grade thsy found my reading to be college level - also I had traits (autie) severe enough that institutions were considered. Nah, Asperger's had not be invented yet.

It's funny, I've never heard the term "hyperlexic" before, but since my family has so many stories about my ability to read at an early age. (Still, I do seem to have a problem analyzing and comprehending the meanings behind what I am reading.) Learning foreign languages comes pretty naturally to me, too. I remember I first started studying Spanish in eighth grade, and while everyone else was stammering, I was reeling.

Seriously, though, that Jessie is one cool kid. I learned Japanese in college, but I'm forgetting a lot of it. Maybe if I do what she did...