Autism Communication

Its not always what people think! Hyperlexia and Hyperverbal defined


Its all about words! Stereotypes of what autism “looks like” in the way autistic people behave, what we do or don’t do, etc. abound. There are so many misunderstanding about what autism “is” and how it might affect a person!!!

Here is a look at the way a percentage of autistic folks experience their world.

Most common ideas about autism include thinking that all autistic individuals are either genius/savant or that we are deficient intellectually.

Of course, like all stereotypes, there are plenty of us “in between”.

It may be more difficult to find diagnosis if an autistic individual has no intellectual deficit and is “good with words”. Autism can affect us in so many other ways!

Hyperlexia is defined as a developmental quirk: the hyperlexic person learns to read and recognize words at an extremely early age, perhaps even as they are learning to speak.
Hyperlexic individuals often read and understand words at a much higher grade level than their age peers.
As well as being able to read and understand words, it is pointed out that most of these individuals do so with a child’s understanding , so reading a novel such as war and peace, or other volumes may not make complete sense to the child in question.
Being immature in years and experiences, insights, nuances, implied references, innuendoes and other social cues may be missed, just as they might be in any other children.

It is often pointed out by mainstream observers that eventually things “even out” and peers of the early reader “catch up”.
Of course even then, some people are better with reading and writing, “good with words” than others.

Hyperverbal individuals use words vocally and with enthusiasm!
Hyperverbal children use words that are usually not included in vocabularies of their childhood peers, and this may continue throughout life, with the hyperverbal person using uncommon words and different sentence structure than “mainstream” communication.

This tendency might be called “didatic” ( refer to “little professor” and autism) and there may also be problems with prosody, the tone, rhythms, patterns of our speech. But speak we do, frequently, mostly fluently, and willingly/frequently/often about our favorite subjects.

Because the person in question (hyperlexic/hyperverbal) usually has the ability to form sentence structure and present thoughts in a relatively coherent manner, diagnosis may be denied or not suspected. “autistic people don’t do that” ( one attempt at finding my diagnosis led to this comment from the neuropsychologist – who I learned later had never identified a single autistic person in his 40+ years of practice )

I suspect that many people who participate heavily on written/messaging types of internet forums, those who blog, or write may fall into this category. That only makes sense, right?

We don’t have to be autistic to have this “good with words” characteristic, but it makes sense that a certain percentage of autistic individuals may also have “the gift of words”.

If you suspect you might be autistic, don’t let the fact that you are “good with words” keep you from exploring the possible other ways autism might be working in your life.

Now approaching 5 years from my diagnosis at age 68, I can see that hyperlexia and hyperverbalism worked against me finding diagnosis, and I do believe I exercised my understanding of words all my life and used this form of learning and communication until it grew like a muscle.

Nothing else worked as well due to my sensory processing struggles. ( 25th percentile visual processing and 35th percentile audio processing)

Words were the key to understanding my world . Maybe this is true for you or your autistic loved one too.