Hyperlexia

[Guest guest]

Reply to hyperlexia

My son fit the discription for hyperlexia- but when he was tested. He

understood what he was reading. He is in a second grade class and still

struggles with language acquisition.

What has been helpful to him is using his encoding and decoding abilities

along with the teaching process. He is very visual and we take advantage of

that. I like the book- Teach Me Language- it addresses how to get at that.

It enables you and extra hook into teaching something errorlessly. My son

has always been the type of three trials and he has it. Writing - visual

maps- visual schedules have been used in all sorts of senarios to help my

son.

A great game now is Outburst. It gives a basic category......red foods. I

can stretch him to answer as many on his own- and if he has not gotten all

the foods on the list - he likes to see what is remaining on the list. This

is helping me think of all sorts of novel categories to present to him.

We also have a new game- Geosafari makes on States and Capitals.

He is using the list- to learn the capitals as we play the game. He knows

how to support himself so he is happy to play the game. He will acquire this

info quickly.

I do not have a good working understanding of AVB- but I do have a son with

a profile you are describing and thought I would share.

Just a mom

FW: Numerous questions about a single topic

>

> I am hoping you AVB people will be able to help me with this one (I have

> yet to see Carbone is action myself).

>

> My son has been doing ABA for almost two years. While other areas have

> seen amazing progress, his language is still quite delayed. He is almost

> 6 and has the rec/exp language of about a 3 yr old.

>

> However, there is one area at the moment I see a problem in and think we

> should tackle it before going on. He is at the moment doing the classic

> 10%/90% thing some kids do. Gets the first one wrong, realizes what

> drill we are doing and gets the remainder right. This comes up

> particularly in functions. Things like " Why do you go to the doctor? " -

> his answer is 'helps sick people'. It is like he knows a chunk of

> answers and listens to the key word in every question and answers it

> with the first association which comes to mind.

>

> Has anyone else had this experience, and how did you overcome it. I

> realize randomly rotating this stuff is essential to make him have to

> listen, but I wondered had anyone come up with anything specific. He

> really looks into your face, searching for what you're asking - it is

> definitely not a compliance issue.

>

> It seems the Wh at the start is what he is missing and not

> understanding.

>

> nicole

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

I did not see the special on ABC's Primetime but heard about it from a

friend--they did a special on Hyperlexia???? Has

anyone heard of it? My friend stated that these kids reminded her of my son. I

guess hyperlexia is often found in autistic kids

or kids with severe language disorders. Often times they can read at an early

age and appear to be very intelligent; however

they have social deficits. You can go to abcnews.com for some info if anyone is

curious.

[Guest guest]

,

Our son knew all his letters by 18 months and would name them off license

plates as we walked in parking lots etc. I didn't think it was that

unusual-ha! He could also count to 20 in English and to 10 in German and

Spanish.

Now that he is 4 1/2 he reads the comics in the newspaper and first reader

books he picks out from the library. He taught himself to read, not that we

didn't help him but I held back encouraging him because we had social issues

to work on. I consider it a blessing that he has this skill - some kids are

good at sports, math or whatever and this is his special talent and that is

how I explain it to him and others. He also has comprehension with reading -

he reads and we talk about the story or what the comics mean etc. I am

hoping it will be one less stress when he goes to kindergarten.

We have been fortunate that he had language the entire time, never lost it,

it just slowed down and got stuck along the way. Reading helped his

language skills ie.- when he had trouble with pronoun reversal, we wrote the

words out and wore tags (me, I, you, etc). We write out words that sound the

same but are different -dew/do. He finds this facinating - plus now I

realize how many 'dumb' rules the English language has as I try to explain

why food/good aren't pronounced the same and other stuff. " Why is there 3

letters that make the 'f' sound(f,ph,gh)? " he asks me. We sing rhyming

silly songs - it makes him laugh, he learns stuff, and it's something kids

do at school. We just go with the flow, it has never been a stim obsession

thing either. He also saw 'letters' in his environment ie chair legs, food,

etc. One of his gifts this Christmas was Boggle Jr. - he loves it and it's

a game with turn taking, social skills and so on.... We are also using his

love of words to work on his writing/OT skills - he needs lots of help in

this.

So, what I'm saying is, for us it has been a blessing and it's how you look

at it.

Have a Great new year!

Anne from Wisconsin

Message: 3

Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 15:51:25 -0000

From: " gurwitzfamily <Gurwitz@...> " <Gurwitz@...>

Subject: Hyperlexia Help Needed

Another too-long post. Someday I'll learn to be concise...

Hello everyone --

I'm be very interested in hearing from anyone who has experience with

a hyperlexic child and how that child's behavior was affected by the

protocol. Did the child's interest in letters remain? I'd be

grateful if you would post your experiences and/or e-mail me

privately at Gurwitz@....