Hyperlexia: my experience

Hyperlexia is the precocious and self-taught ability to read, usually before the age of 4, and sometimes as early as 18 months - 2 years.
This is my experience of being an early reader (though undiagnosed), as well as my observations about my son, who is coming up to 3, and on track to read in a similar timeframe to me.
Autism and early reading don't always go together, but there is some overlap.
Please note: I am not an educational professional, and if you have concerns about your child, please ask one! These are my own experiences and reflections, about me and my child only.
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[@RachaelStephanie]

When you mentioned the scenario of saying “what?” And the person starts to repeat themselves and then you’re like “Oh yeah I already heard you” it resonated with me so much. I was diagnosed on 1st April and I’ve done that my whole life. It’s like saying “what?” Or “sorry” is buying time for it to sink in rather than blankly staring while I work out what they said. I always knew that was the case, but people are more receptive to thinking you didn’t hear them than you trying to explain that the information didn’t go in. With the latter, you can be labelled stupid or slow. I was tested as a kid SO MANY TIMES for hearing problems - perfect hearing.

[@YoSamdySam]

Yeah it really makes you think you're going crazy when you "can't hear" but the hearing tests come back fine. I don't know how well known auditory processing issues were when I was younger, but I hope they are more widely recognised now.

[@RachaelStephanie]

Yo Samdy Sam I would hope so too! I am roughly the same age as you and i never knew it was a thing. I still experience it now and my hearing is confirmed over and over as being perfectly fine. I actually hear sounds others do not, too - like stuff that makes no sense when you try to explain to NTs. “What do you mean you can hear the WiFi router and the bulb in the lamp?”😅 The NT experience of the world must be so quiet! 😅

[@SweetiePieTweety]

Yes, having your hearing constantly tested determining it is auditory processing delay due to a disability of intellect vs the disability of audio filtering. Suddenly with earphones taking away background noise, etc... oh look... they are fine intellectually no learning disability for the IEP. While totally missing the point eliminating background noise is CRITICAL. Oh well, the ignorance of the typical. Whatcha gonna do🙅🙅🙅. Sorry watching my boys with exceptional hearing that was disabling in certain environments be treated like they were dunces was just so annoying lol. What is the goal here education system ?? Is it teaching the ability to learn in the environment of the classroom or is the goal learning the subject in the best way possible for the child? When they don’t allow noise canceling headphones or a pullout in a sound reducing room yet they can. Argh

[@jockrot-fixit719]

I have a problem with people repeating things to me even though they know I heard them. This could happen days later and it is quite strenuous to pay attention to someone when you feel like they are treating you like your stupid or dont listen. It can feel abusive. Alot of the time they do it to try and get a reaction. Another problem i find is getting bogged down in what a person said and trying to process it as they are still speaking. Sometimes people use elaborate sentences to try and seem smart what they could have easily been explained in fewer words. Then I have to declutter what they have said to get the information. I was the kid staring out the window at the Jacaranda tree. I could read already when i started school, and i realise now that it didnt really matter what size the words were. Some other kids would struggle because the word was large. I was also tested for hearing problems. I think its funny when your told you dont listen but can sing in tune and play music by ear.

[@joariezu]

@@RachaelStephanie Yeah, I totally identify myself with that. For me was with the old TV. When they were on, even if black and nothing on them I can hear a high pitch from 2 rooms away. And me coming to my parents and saying.. I think you left the TV on. 😅. I also do the "what?" thing all the time. Is like I need to mentaly visualize what someone sais, and takes too much time. Great video Yo Samdy Sam :)

[@bananachip7937]

I totally get a word looking “right” or “wrong”. If I have trouble spelling something that someone asks me to, I write it down and voila! I know the answer.

[@zia_kat]

that's how i do it too!

[@liammarshall-butler3384]

I can type words without thinking about it, but when I have to write out a word but hand, I will write out the wrong spelling. I will know it's wrong but sometimes I just have to keep guessing until I stumble upon the right one

[@elizabethbennet4791]

me too...and a MUCH HARDER time spelling it aloud?!?!?!

[@Octopussyist]

Especially in English! Probably because there are so many words that sound just about or exactly the same, but have different spellings and meanings.

[@meatsuitoracle5176]

Same!

[@ithacacomments4811]

My aspie daughter started to read at age 3. I explained phonics to her and she was off. She was reading to her brother who is 2 years older. When she went to school I told her teacher that she could read. Her teacher wanted to know who taught her. She is 46 now and has had a lifelong enjoyment of books and reading.

[@sarahgumball8597]

Hi there! My 3 year old is showing the same signs. She didn’t talk till she was two. Now at three she is saying 1-2 words and sometimes a sentence, but she loves ABCs and can read books. What was your daughters experience with language and socializing as a toddler and child?

[@ithacacomments4811]

@@sarahgumball8597 My daughter is 48 now. I didn't know that she was on the autism spectrum when she was a child. She seemed to be a very intelligent... slightly hyperactive child to me. It was in adulthood that we realized that she and I are not neurotypical. She graduated college. As an adult, she lives independently... Today, she has a very intense techy job, is introverted, and is emotionally on the level of a 15 year old. She loves animals. She has never dated. She has friends that are Aspies.

[@3188glopez]

@@sarahgumball8597 Hello! My 3 year old is also on the spectrum, she didn't speak much either till she was two. After a whole year of speech therapy, she can now speak in 4-5 word sentences. I noticed her ability to read once her speech improved, she can spell her name and can read 2-3 word phrases. She's had a love for the ABCs and numbers since she was a baby. She's now working on her tracing skills and has almost mastered it!

[@Monika-ej4rs]

I am hyperlexic and autistic. I taught myself how to read at an early age (3 to 4) and therefor was really bored in the first years of school. Other kids hated grammar lessons, but I loved grammar in school and the German language has a lot of rules. I also definitely struggled with auditory learning, which was why I struggled to learn English initially. That was until I started to read English books obsessively which was when I started to improve rapidly. Because of my auditory processing problems, I actually didn’t like learning new languages for a long time. Now I’m starting to think, that I might just have to learn languages differently... Thanks for the interesting topic, Sam.

[@blueberrymuffin_144]

Draconika I had a really similar experience, except I started reading VERY young. I actually skipped a grade because of my reading capabilities. It really sucked, I couldn’t make any friendships.

[@rattenfreundin5621]

Früher in der Grundschule fand ich die Grammatik immer ziemlich langweilig, es war mir halt alles klar und ich hatte keine Ahnung, warum die anderen Kinder aus meiner Klasse damit solche Probleme hatten. Später war Grammatik dann auch mein Lieblingsthema im Deutschunterricht und mein Deutschlehrer war regelmäßig verzweifelt, wie ich es schaffe, in Grammatik und Rechtschreibung absolut fehlerfrei zu sein, bei den Interpretationen und freien Texten aber regelmäßig zu versagen. Auch heute noch sitze ich in Deutsch immer ahnungslos vor den Texten und muss die Sätze bei höchster Konzentration mehrmals lesen, bis alles bei mir angekommen ist und dann habe ich ja noch nicht mal den Inhalt verstanden.

[@theresedignard4267]

Can totally agree with your entry. Thanks for sharing.

[@joyful_tanya]

@@blueberrymuffin_144 I had the same experience! Skipped a grade as well and difficulty forming friendships. Mainly 1 at a time. I "taught myself to read" at 2 1/2 is what my parents told me.

[@mihaelaalexandrapeiu1063]

Hi. I've noticed your message. I also have auditory processing disorder(APD), which is one of the comorbidities of ADHD/ASD. Anyway, I am hyperlexic, but my story is a bit different, because I live in another country, and the school rules are a bit different here. I started reading fluently at the age of five, and my first novel at the age of 8-9. Anyway, after that, I've been impressed by other languages, and my mom taught me the basic rules of reading Russian, and I was able to read a short prayer in the back of a picture. And later I began curious about reading in greek. In highschool, we needed to study Cyrillic old texts and practice reading. To be fair, I was the best in my class, and next to me was a teenager who learned the Russian alphabet(the Cyrillic alphabet is similar to the Russian alphabet). Meanwhile, I've began interested in reading about new things only in English. I was obssessed with English, and I need to say this: I was not able to hear anything, or understand what they were saying. So, I applying this technique. Read with the captions below. It helped me overcome my auditory difficulties, and learned that it is only part of the brain that is weaker than average. So, keep trying and don't stop until you have mastered a new language!

[@chriss6687]

I learned to read at age two, and have loved it ever since. When I was young, my preschool teacher called my mother in for a conference because I "had a discipline problem". The problem was that I "was pretending I could read", and would look at a book I brought rather than pay attention during reading lessons. My mother told her that I could in fact read, and would read to my younger sister every night. Despite this, the teacher insisted there was no way I could read. Eventually my mum picked a random magazine from the teacher's desk and had me read an article out loud. The teacher was still convinced that I couldn't read, and insisted I had memorized the article.

[@Hjominbonrun]

My son was 2. We were at a restaurant and he wrote the words brown, red, green, yellow, in the same colour crayons. My father in law nearly fell on his back. This was something to be proud of not listed as a dysfunction.

[@thieleaf_the_shelf_dragon]

i'm autistic and hyperlexic! the huge confusion about phonics resonates with me a lot, though it was always seen to others as "thinking you're better than everyone else" and being snooty... i used to really puzzle my teachers, even in the last year of primary school when i was the best reader and writer in the class by far, but my spelling was terrible; i just couldn't process the words they were saying into the words they mean and then how to spell that all before they had moved on to the next word! even now when people spell a word out loud to me it's just A Sound rather that actually registering the sounds as letters

[@neulasia]

my brother was speaking full sentences as a baby. i, apparently, spontaneously learned to read at 4 years old (thank you richard scarry and my parents tirelessly reading the books for me!) but i already knew how to write my own name and other words at three. my mom says i was on the floor with a newspaper and suddenly just exclaimed i could read. i don't remember that moment myself, but i have vivid memories from that age and before, mostly negative or unfair situations, but also some happy sensory and visual moments (thunderstorm, looking up at a sky full of stars on a very cold night, summer day under the laundry line with my kitten etc). we start school at age seven so i was way ahead and very frustrated during the first years. we have subtitles on tv and movies, so i also became bilingual (finnish/english) on my own. i'm good with languages in general and quickly catch on to grammar, but listening comprehension is definitely my pitfall. i'm studying japanese currently and it's my goal to make it my third fluent language, but it's so much harder at forty than four! i absolutely have an alert inner grammar nazi, which is fortunately kept in check by my more compassionate qualities. i spot mistakes in text without trying. and yes, i am autistic.

[@ravenjohnson8590]

hope learning japanese goes well for you! i found the phonetic alphabet pretty easy to read after the initial learning curve of actually memorizing the symbols. theres a lot of juicy linguistics history to the language as well which i enjoy :)

[@jadethegamermc]

I love Where's Wally (or Waldo), and I love catching spelling mistakes in professional writings. Always a good laugh. My boyfriend has poor grammar however, which annoys the heck out of me. For example: "You was there." I'm like "No, it's 'You WERE there.'" My punctuation isn't great though. 😂

[@joyful_tanya]

Yes, me too and my son. Both of us "spontaneously" could read. They skipped me ahead in school. I'm 55 and he's 30. He is diagnosed with Asperger's. I am not but I am very suspicious that I would fall into the "higher functioning" autism spectrum too.

[@thequoter1704]

I am autistic and hyperlexic, I finally realize now why I find Spanish listening tests so hard! It goes to fast for me to process. I learnt to read when I was 2-3 years old, and I've always loved reading since. I also found phonics really hard to understand!

[@linojakobsen7737]

What you ate mentiioning there is probably also the hardest thing for most people when learning languages. But there are ways to train this.

[@elizabethbennet4791]

yea i cant stop reading

[@johnridout6540]

Spanish is spoken at about 8 syllables per second and English at about 6 syllables per second. I have exactly the same problem with listening tests in foreign languages.

[@smellamyblake8352]

I understood the phonics but didn’t really need them to learn to read

[@Amparito847]

I'm speak Spanish natively and I can cornfirm that Spanish is the second fastest langauge in the world behind Japanese

[@drasco61084]

I need people to get my attention first when speaking to me. If they just start saying something to me when I'm busy with something else it's like my speech recognition just takes a bit to wake up and figure out where each word begins and ends, and then it works correctly after that. But sometimes it just sounds like gibberish the first second or so and it's so weird

[@Octopussyist]

Judging from that I would say, you are male. Are you really?

[@riseandshinemrfriman5925]

Same :p to me it sounds like "What ______ you ______ to _____ later? " My brain just catches parts and discards the rest. I think this is hyperfocus from ADHD. It takes a while to switch out of it and re-position the targeting crosshair. :P

[@EJtheEJsEJ]

@@Octopussyist can you explain what that means?

[@Octopussyist]

@@EJtheEJsEJ What?

[@gwencrist.]

@@Octopussyist for example, why do you think they are male?

[@annemvd]

I’ve recently realized that I may be autistic, and knowing that I had hyperlexia and selective mutism at age 3 makes a world of sense now. I’m also hard of hearing so that makes life fun.

[@Towandakit]

My mom has always told me I learned to read super early, and I have always always always been a fast reader who reads far above my peers' so-called "levels" (I always thought those were stupid anyway but I digress) and the stuff you say about finding it easier to understand when I'm processing visually (instead of through auditory means) resonates sO MUCH. I cannot - simply cannot - remember something if I do not know how it is spelled. Names, new words, what I need at the grocery store... If I can picture the spelling in my head (and know for sure that's how it's spelled) then I can remember it for pretty much as long as I need to. I've got a mind for dates, phone numbers, names, and phrases from real life or television but /only/ when I can spell them. I'm investigating if autism could be a diagnosis for me, and this honestly is one of the major ones (also masking and sensory sensitivity), thank you so much for sharing!

[@melaniebelen6211]

My mother told me that at age 3 i could read but she didn't know how i learned lol. At that time, we had a game: I was reading everything at the street and say it to her, and i did this a lot in my childhood because it mades me relax. Between 3 and 5 years old i read but i read more the same books, like an astronomy one for kids. Also my kinder teacher (3 years old) told to my mother that "i talked like a teacher". My mother thinks thats why i never connected a lot with my peers. (Sorry for my english, it's not my first language)

[@liliavayuna4852]

i am hyperlexic and 4utisti(, and just wanted to say... every single thing you mentioned having had in this video, i experienced and experience EXACTLY the same! watching your channel is so validating :)

[@ATWyattWest]

Long before kindergarten, I remember secretly reading “The Littlest Angel,” but telling no one because I was afraid that grownups would stop reading to me if they knew I could read.

[@peterwynn2169]

I knew my letters before i went to school, and I remember, when I was three, my brother was born and his name is Matthew. At three, I was fascinated, because of the spelling, "M-A-T-T-H-E-W," double T and W double U, and M is an upside down W. I am fascinated by words, too. I can speak English, Japanese, a bit of Chinese, I remember "Silent Night," in German, a bit of French, and a few words in Arabic.

[@anyaklum8757]

This is so interesting because I'm actually terrible at spelling, partly because I never bothered to learn phonics and partly because I read so fast that my brain just skips over all the middle letters!

[@henriettajsoneskelin7806]

I have been down the autism self-discovery track for years, but only tonight came across hyperlexia through an autistic youtuber, which led the algoritms to introduce your video. I am currently mindblown because the way YOU desbribe this is me, my childhood experience AND my daughter with astonishing accuracy! EVERYTHING you just said fits 100%. That is rare. I feel just as struck by lightning as when I found a label for my synesthesia half a lifetime ago ❤ Fantasic, thank you!

[@MrsYoung-in9ov]

😱 I’ve been casually looking into whether or not I could be autistic and this is one I haven’t heard of before. I learned to read at like the age of 2. I remember being so frustrated in 1st grade (when we’d go around the circle and read) that everyone else couldn’t read yet 😂

[@stephaniehodgson5889]

Wow! Yet another piece of the puzzle for me. One of my earlier school memories was my parents being called into my 1/2 day kindergarten class to meet with the teacher and administrators. Apparently, while the rest of the class was learning A-B-C, I was writing the entire alphabet backwards (mirror image) and they thought I was "slow". My parents laughed and said, "she just likes to hold it up to the mirror." Like you, it wasn't interpreted as anything much except high intelligence, which is why I was allowed to order a 1000 page book (Gone With The Wind) in third grade, from Scholastic, and finished it in three days. Also, I have scripts for EVERYTHING in my adult life. I have such a hard time with ad libbing business conversations. I always write down key talking points and answers I think I will need. INCLUDING my own work telephone number & address, in case I have to say it on an answering machine. You're great! And I'm loving these informative videos. I'm learning so much about myself and it's made me feel very much comfortable in my own skin for the first time in 45 years. Keep it up!

[@PleiadianSister]

Undiagnosed autism, 32, just watched one of your vids a few weeks ago, and everything… my whole life makes sense. Autism literally explains the majority of my challenges in both childhood and adulthood. Now I’ve gone down a rabbit hole, taking all the tests online I could possibly take and researching like a maniac. Quite sure I am also hyperlexic. Started reading on my own by age 3. Also bugged my mom constantly in the first month of grade 3 to request I skip a grade and she finally caved. (She was also a teacher) So I skipped grade 3. It was hard and I was bullied, but I think it wouldve been harder to stay in grade 3. Funny you say you think you would’ve been a good proofreader. I had a job for many years running a data entry department at a printing company. All finals went through me before going to print…. And the font was size 7 😬 it was my favourite job ever. I was so good at it. I find if I look at a word repeatedly the meaning “disappears” and then the word looks strange to me. Not sure if that’s related, but it’s an interesting thing that happens to me. Anywho, thanks for your vids, they have helped me figure out who I am. It’s funny, figuring out I’m autistic, makes me feel like there’s nothing wrong with me… I’m just autistic. :) before I always felt like being different was weird and I should be more like others. 💕

[@JeanieD]

I haven’t been diagnosed as hyperlexic, but what you described sounds like me. I could read before I was in school ( I also figured out how multiplication worked before school, although I never quite was good at doing it practically), and I have always been fascinated by language, etymology, etc. I also self-identify as autistic, starting less than a year ago after an online acquaintance from the U.K. started sharing about her (official, medical) diagnosis. I am 56 and live in the US, so I doubt I will be able to afford an actual diagnosis (I’m also unemployed and have no healthcare insurance). I really appreciate your channel and the feeling that I get from learning more about autism in adults, especially women. Thank you so much, Sam!

[@rattenfreundin5621]

I'm also hyperlexic and autistic. At the age of 2 I started to teach myself how to read and was a fluent reader at the age of 4. My father once told me how my primary school teacher said to him how unusual it would be for a first grade student not even being able to read easy words. She thought I couldn't read, but I just didn't talk that much. My father was really surprised by that, at home I was reading all the time. I wonder why they didn't thought of me being autistic, I showed so much signs.

[@Leena79]

I love languages, especially the etymology of words and finding similarities in different languages (to the degree that I probably annoyed the heck out of my Spanish teacher by constantly finding connections between Spanish and English (neither are my native languages). I don't know if it can quite be called hyperlexia, but I learned to read at the age of five, which is two years before school starts here. My older brother had started school, and I found his books absolutely fascinating, and learned to read before him, on my own. I'm Finnish, and the way kids are taught to read at school is through spelling letter by letter and syllable by syllable, and I kinda skipped that phase and went straight to reading and writing full words. I remember being really worried when I started school, about not knowing how to use syllables, but it turned out that it wasn't that hard after all. I'm supposed to hear my diagnosis results on whether I have ASD or not in June, and as a kid everyone just figured I'm smart. I definately learn things best through reading and finding connections, instead of by hearing. It helps me to focus on listening to doodle or draw while I listen (or fiddle with something), but I faze out really easily. And especially when I'm tired, I can accidentally flip words (like pig Latin) and say them wrong without even noticing. Which is very embarrasing sometimes. 😂

[@leafhoff4321]

I do the first thing too and I love when I find words that are the same in languages in completely different language families.

[@RaunienTheFirst]

It's interesting what you say about flipping words. Puns and wordplay come naturally to me, to the point that I'll use them in everyday speech, much to the annoyance of my dear wife. Spoonerisms are a particular favourite of mine, "pying fran" instead of "frying pan" and so on.

[@elirhaydaroglu2318]

The worst you never realise you flipped the words until everybody is laughing and you pass to robot talking while trying to process what the hell is happened

[@MarieMa1907]

I dont remember this but my parents have told me that some time before i started school i was suddenly just reading on my own. My guess is that it was because ive always loved reading, and still do, and i was probably eager to read by myself. I started reading YA books early too. Same with adult books. And the same happend with my writing. And it saddens me a little cause it does raise some flags for possible autism and if the school had picked up on that i might have gotten my autism diagnosis much earlier in life then in my mid-20s. I do have a story related to my advanced reading. When i had just started school, this was the first week or so, a girl that was a year older then me was pretending to read a book out loud to us younger kids. I looked at the book and noticed that she wasnt actually reading the text. She just made up the story based on the pictures in the book. And i said out loud “That’s not correct”.

[@tracik1277]

KookieM love your story

[@Emma-ul3gz]

I've just started learning more about the more comprehensive list of autism traits (rather than the stereotypical traits that seem so incredibly wrong now), and the more I think about it, the more I realize that many behaviors now and in my childhood point to it. I'm saying this specifically on your comment because I also am/was a voracious reader, and I feel like finishing an entire adult crime series by the end of second grade should have pointed to something. Heck, I learned how to completely structure a story so I could write a fan fiction about my favorite book series in first grade. It's just very interesting to watch these videos and read comments and relate so much to people who have autism because I have never felt this understood in my life.

[@HAlC-up4hm]

This is so interesting. My early education experience was quite different. lol I couldn't really read until 3rd grade (I was nearly held back), then in the span of a few months I jumped to chapter books. I guess it took a while for something to click. Once I could read, I quickly began reading (then writing) many grade levels ahead, but my spelling was always *horrific*. My vocabulary was truly impressive, but I couldn't spell any of it. lol By age 15 my 9 yo sister could spell circles around me. It wasn't until half way through college I was diagnosed with a learning disability (LD-NOS) with significant elements of dyslexia and a few other things thrown in. It would take 4 years after the LD diagnosis to get the ASD diagnosis (technically PDD-NOS), and then everything started to make sense...lol

[@garyfrancis5015]

HAlC11235 Persuasive development disorder- non otherwise specified. For those who heard of old DSM4 before 2013. No one asking for PDD NOS back they are asking for Asperger's syndrome. That's because PDD-NOS was a shit criteria. Sorry for having a go at your past diagnoses. But it so difficult for professionals to tell the difference it in between aspergers and high functioning. But reading from Attwood book on the problems with the old DSM4 it was hard to tell the difference between between high functioning autism and Asperger's syndrome. Then having PDD-NOS was a vague description between to HFA and AS. In this aspergers documentary by formerly Alyssa Huber now Luisha nerodivergrnt I think. There was a man with PDD NOS he was on the aspergers documentary. Because PDD NOS is basically aspergers.

[@gracet4444]

that is so me, I know a load of words just can't spell them and often struggle to say them.

[@Vgallo]

@@garyfrancis5015 can you give me the name of the documentaries? Are you referring to tony attwood?

[@magister343]

@@garyfrancis5015 Did you mean Pervasive, or a more obscure personality disorder that allows you to convince people of things more easily?

[@DavidWarrington65]

So much of this resonated with me. I was reading by age 3. I taught myself, I suppose (with help from an amazing caregiver) because I didn’t understand well from being read to. In first grade (I’m in the US), I was placed in third-grade reading, and that “step-up” continued throughout primary school. And I’ve asked, “What?” all my life, despite numerous hearing tests that said my hearing was great. By the time I had finished asking, though, I had processed what was said. I finally realized (five decades later) that it’s an auditory processing issue. This video is life-changing to me, to realize I’m not as “weird” (in one way, at least) as I thought-that others had/have similar experiences. Thank you!!!

[@DavidWarrington65]

I neglected to say: adult-diagnosed autistic (well, adult self-identified autistic)

[@kellyjohnston2217]

Hi Sam! I'm hyperlexic and autistic, too. I also have the same issue with audio processing. It's especially difficult for me to process spoken language when I am in a space that has lots of competing ambient noise. I hear SO well that I hear everything, all at once, and it's just so dang cacophonous that I cannot "hear" what is being said to me. Really what I can't do is making meaning of that particular group of sounds in relation to all the other sounds that are coming in at essentially the same volume. Gotta love dem ear plugs! YES. Thank you for your videos!

[@Luisa-bt2wr]

okay, this is crazy... literally everything i've seen you say resonates with my life?? i've learned to read by myself at 3, to write at 4 (in portuguese). learned english by myself at about 9, 10. both of those because i had wanted to read harry potter, since i was obsessed with it. so, i was reading HP in portuguese at 4/5 years old, and in english at 9/10. dude, the thing about the word just looking weird, like. YES. i really have always thought i was the only one. everyone when i was 3 just thought i had remembered them, but no, i had learned them after getting obcessed with some words around the city/house and just really not being able to focus until i found out how they sounded and what they meant.

[@josh34578]

I liked written words because they are primarily a visual thing, and only secondarily an auditory thing. This preference was painfully obvious in a high school English class when we learned about iambic pentameter and had to then write a poem in it. I knew stresses were a property of words, so for every word I wanted to use in my poem, I looked it up in the dictionary to find out which syllables were stressed. This took a lot of time and my poem wasn't very good. It was only much later that I realized stresses on syllables were a property of the words that could be heard when spoken!

[@gracet4444]

I'm Autistic and Dyslexic, but I also had an advanced reading age- just not out loud. I can read something and pick out the ideas (and memorize them) really quickly but I struggle to read out loud word for word, although Tinted glasses helped. I also have really advanced verbal language and vocabulary, always have done. However I really struggled with spelling and writing, also forming sentences is really hard. I can look at a word and know if It's spelt wrong but not know how to fix it which is really frustrating. Ahh like the word spelt, the past tense of to spell ahh. I read by memorizing the shape of the word rather than individual letters. I also really struggle with comprehension, I hate it. So I would disagree that Hyperlexia is the opposite of dyslexia, as I seem to have both.

[@catblues8645]

This is 100% me. I taught myself to read when I was 3, because apparently I complained that my older siblings could read and I couldn't, and my mum just gave me a book and said "well go ahead then". I could also write a few words, but writing came a bit later and while I hardly ever made any spelling mistakes, my handwriting was not very pretty in primary school. I was also always interested in languages and alphabets and other script systems. I have a Master's degree in Indoeuropean Linguistics (which included learning to translate from Latin, Greek, Gothik, Sanscrit, Old Irish, Old Persian, and a few others) and I can read a fair bit of French and a bit of Spanish, but the only languages I can actually speak are my native language German, and fluent English. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years reading, first in German, then also in English. After meeting my now-husband, I developed the theory that we might both be autistic, and while he got his formal diagnosis right away, I came out of the process without a diagnosis. The diagnostic process is still very much focused on male children, and unless you're lucky enough to find a professional (AND get an appointment...) who specializes in autism in adult women, or you're very much IN YOUR FACE autistic, it's very hard to get a diagnosis. So for now, my overwhelmed and clinically depressed self has temporarily given up, and I live as a self-diagnosed Aspie (I know, it's ASD now) and try to muddle through the best I can. My husband hasn't really DONE anything with his diagnosis (like getting support etc), but it came as such a relief to finally know why he is different, and it helps us both understand the way we experience things.

[@RedXiongmao]

Oh man. I was reading before kindergarten and when I was 2 years I would drive my mom crazy making her read the Dr Seuss ABCs book to me. I don't need this right now.

[@toastmistwin4404]

I recently found your channel and I feel like I've learnt so much - I had no idea this was something linked to autism and watching your videos I relate on so many things. It's fascinating

[@adamh2900]

This is really interesting - I was several years ahead of others in early primary school, seldom made spelling mistakes and was reading above my level, knew things that I wouldn't be expected to at that age I know from my own experience that showing ability at a young age does not necessarily mean those abilities can be put to any practical use as an adult

[@anne-mariefaulkner6843]

I am autistic, hyperlexic and have an auditory processing disorder. I had no idea the 3 concepts were related. My son and my grandson are also the same. My son was reading by age 2 and reading chapter books by age 4. He started by reading cereal boxes including the ingredient list. He was diagnosed with severe ADHD by age 4 yet skipped up to 7 grades by what should have been grade 5. His son is reading and spelling everything he can get his hands on. His latest obsession is creating letters with LEGO and spelling out words with them. I absolutely love your videos because I can so strongly relate to them. I have thought my whole life that in some ways I was just strange and didn’t fit in (why was no one else obsessed with astronomy and weather) and in other ways that everyone else must also struggle with the same things I do. Your videos explain so much. My son and his wife love watching them too. Keep it up.

[@katzvlog5541]

Thank you for this. It was extremely informative and helpful for me 💜

[@OccupySchagen]

Thank you... I already assumed it, because mostly you speak so fast, that to follow you i need to set the KZbin speed on 0.75, which helps a lot. No critics, luckily KZbin has that feature. I remember after having read all books in the local tobacco-shop that also functioned as local library, i went to an official library on the age of 9-10. I looked at the books on the shelves and selected some on Atoms, Neutrons, Radio-astronomy, geological (stones) and Planets. When i put them on the desk she said: "Oh but the children-books are over there." But i was allowed to take them with me.

[@buttercxpdraws8101]

Wow. My story exactly. I was reading and spelling words prior to age 3, and writing sentences before age 5. I then masked extremely heavily until autistic burnout at age 46 and was diagnosed autistic this year at age 48. Still coming to terms with it all, your videos help me enormously!

[@thatwiseoldbitchchannel]

I just recently discovered i was autistic... And even more recently like 2 days ago found out I was hyperlexic... I was talking to myself as a baby...my mom said and learned to read/spell at 4... Then I devoured dictionaries and had a college level spelling/reading/comprehension BUT I also had dyscalculia...so my math skills stayed at about 3rd grade level... So of course because I couldn't do math I was labeled stupid... 🙄🙄🙄 Thank you for the informative videos!

[@tracik1277]

That Wise Old Bitch Similar situation for me 😹

[@saracole4411]

Thank you for making this video and others. With this one it has inspired me to find a good English teacher on here as I have a fascination with life and I write poetry and so I feel the need to advance in my vocabulary so that I can put words to my feelings much more.

[@mariwelch]

yes! my 4 yr old is hyperlexic. he started recognizing words on signs like "exit" "open" "push", etc. at age 2. i pointed to the pictures when i would read him bedtime stories and he made me point to the word i was reading. he just figured it out. he was reading full "frog and toad" stories at age 3, and is beginning to write sentences now at age 4. he even wrote up a birthday card for for me earlier this month! i had an informal diagnosis of asd at age 38 and i have suspected for a while that he may be on the spectrum as well. he used(?) echolalia when he was learning to speak, flaps his hands a bit, and has a knack for arranging things ♥️ thanks so much for these videos. i just found your channel tonight and i am going to watch probably every video very soon 😂

[@kyramiles5125]

Fascinating! Pretty sure I am hyperlexic as I was self-taught and reading before I started school aged 4. Newly exploring the possibility I am autistic at age 40. I relate to everything you said so much. I have no hope of remembering someone's name if I can't spell it and picture it in my mind. Actually no hope of remembering or learning anything that I hear if I don't write it down immediately. Audiobooks don't really work for me, I'm always stopping to replay and write things down!

[@melissad8824]

All of this is SO me. I taught myself how to read at the age of 4 by repeatedly listening to and following along with the Disney Heffalump book and cassette tape. Then I graduated myself to higher and higher reading level books from the public library until by the age of 9 I was reading books from the adults' section (my mother had to give special permission to the librarian for me to check out books from that section LOL). I also played on a Speak And Spell which taught me whether a word's spelling "looked right". Phonics was a nightmare for me which to this day I can't understand. I eventually became a Harlequin Teen author and a book editor for multiple publishers for decades until I "retired" a few years ago because I needed a change to more visually creative work. I too have hyper sensitive hearing (I can tell what type of product is being touched by someone else inside the kitchen cabinets, whether it was sunglasses or some other object that just fell between the car door and seat, etc.). But when I hear speech, it takes me a delay to process what was just said and what the intended meaning of those words is. Sometimes I even have to ask the person to reword what they said so I can understand them, even though they're speaking in perfectly understandable English and English is my primary language. This has been getting steadily worse over the last few years to the point that talking with others is now a struggle. Choosing words for me to speak is even harder and I really struggle with aphasia.

[@kathygedamke2167]

Hi Sam! I love your videos. I am in my 50's and was (unofficially) diagnosed with Asperger's in my 30's when I found out that one of my son's has Asperger's. (Since then a brother of mine was also diagnosed, in his 40's). I was an early reader, and also learned math early. I agree about the pattern recognition idea; mathematics is all about patterns. I also have the sensory delay thing going on (just ask my husband). I am really good at language, figuring out root words, even in other languages. I actually have seven kids (all adults now) that have various autistic-like traits to varying degrees. And we definitely communicate very well among ourselves :)

[@kathygedamke2167]

Oh yes, and by the time my oldest was ten, he and his two younger brothers ( 9 and 7) tested out at the 12th grade reading level.

[@KierannaKathleen]

I was diagnosed ASD at 56 yrs. old. Looking back I can explain so much of how I looked at the world. Learning about Hyperlexia is amazing. I was reading far above my grade level at a very young age which my parents thought I was just super smart! And I was teaching my younger sister to read by the time she was 4 and I was only 6. The most striking memory was I had learned the “ABC song” and could say it backwards just as quickly and musically as I could forwards before kindergarten. So when I was asked to say my ABC’s in kindergarten I would say it backwards. My teachers thought of me as a precocious smart ass.

[@sparrowelf]

I kind of resonate with almost everything you said in this video. I'm only self-/peer-diagnosed as autistic, but I can definitely say I was/am hyperlexic. I really don't remember not being able to read. My mother and grandmother told me I read a newspaper headline to my grandmother when I was 2. I have no memory of that, but I do remember being excited when my older brother started kindergarten (when I was 3) because it meant I could read his books and magazines while he was at school. And I remember being angry when I started kindergarten and learned that we wouldn't have access to the school library, because I wanted to read the rest of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. There were words that I didn't know the definition and pronunciation of, but I did understand how to "sound them out" (don't remember being taught phonics except maybe through Sesame Street) so I usually got fairly close. I'm with you on the spelling, though since the rise of social media, I'm having a harder time with spelling because I see some misspellings so often that they are starting to "look right". And don't get me started on British English vs American English spellings! I'm American, but there are many words that I tend to use British spellings for as often as not, since the Sherlock Holmes books were among my favorites as a child, LOL. I also think I have an auditory processing disorder. I've had several hearing tests through the years, the kind where they put you in a soundproof booth, put headphones on you, and then you press a button when you hear a tone. Each time I was told I have exceptionally good hearing and an exceptional range (and yes, I can hear florescent lights, the old tube-style TVs, etc). But I often have trouble understanding what people say, and definitely do the "what?" and then figure it out before they're done repeating it. A few years ago I realized that I use lip reading to help process what people are saying; it was so instinctual for me that I didn't even know I was doing it until I was in my mid-40's. I think that might be one of several reasons why I have so much anxiety about talking on the telephone.

[@Nora.Frank.]

I'm autistic and hyperlexic. My daughter is also hyperlexic (no asd diagnosis as of yet), but she hates to read and it makes me so sad! ETA: not sad because I think it's 'bad' that she doesn't like to read, more because reading brings me so much joy, and I'd love for her to experience that too.

[@MuhanRouge]

I'm not autistic or hyperlexic but I totally relate to what you said about being naturally good at spelling. I didn't speak any English before age 4 and my family immigrated to Canada - I think at that point I was just picking up the language from my environment/daycare/tv the way young children can but my parents were still worried about my English so they hired one of my daycare teachers to tutor me in phonics for a summer and from that my reading/writing level shot up. I remember being very effortlessly above my grade level all through elementary (primary) school. It's so interesting how you described spelling because that's exactly how I felt about it - I could always just tell when a word was spelled correctly or not and could always get 100% on spelling tests in school. But because I was ESL as a child and learned English from phonics/reading (and not from hearing words) I oftentimes pronounced words totally wrong - I once INSISTED island was pronounced phonetically until my first grade teacher had to correct me haha. English is, for all intents and purposes, my first language now, but its so interesting to think back on how language acquisition happened when I was young!

[@alethearia]

This is me. You are describing my childhood. I was in chapter books by the time most of my 1st grade classmates were still reading early readers. And it's very interesting to note that audio books (most of them anyway) are sort of like auditory versions of "dyslexia friendly" fonts. So that audio books are at a pace and diction that are easy for me to interpret - where, say, I have to watch TV shows with subtitles on just to understand what anyone is saying. Interestingly enough, this meant that I really enjoyed foreign films because reading didn't bother me at all.

[@jerrysims6691]

Great vid Sam. Definitely hyperlexic - first year of school was completely strange. Remember those Janet & John books - which I flew through so that I could be the first to play with the train set. I'm very much a visual learner: later in life enjoyed chemistry and biochemistry - I could easily see and recall all those flow charts of chemical interactions etc.

[@mikaylaeager7942]

I’m the complete opposite. Autistic and dyslexic. I didn’t catch up to my peers until 3rd grade (8yo) in reading level. Still to this day it takes me months to finish a book and I cant spell to save my life. Despite this I have always been a huge bookworm. As a child I was able to recite full passages from books verbatim, had an extensive vocabulary, and a special interest in Shakespeare that included reading my favorite scenes out loud to my family on a regular basis. I also reliably score in the 90th percentile or higher on writing and reading comprehension tests. Most recently I scored in the 99th percentile on my graduate school entrance exam (GRE). Just a reminder to anyone that might think that having dyslexia or being slower to learn something means you aren’t as smart as those who pick it up quickly.

[@Tamashi88]

Hi Sam, this is the first video of yours I've seen and thank you so much for making it! I was diagnosed autistic as an adult (afab) and I have always struggled with spelling but I am about 80% sure I am hyperlexic. This is because of two main reasons: I don't remember ever not being able to read, and my mum said I could read before I started school at 4 years old. She later walked that back a bit and said I was 'reading along to books I already knew' but I'm going with her first explanation instead. My memories of early reading is hazy because instead of being encouraged in school I think I accidentally tricked my teachers into thinking I was illiterate. So I was stuck on those three words a page books and hating it until Harry Potter came out when I was about 9. That series really got me into reading. Basically I excelled and then stopped... until my classmates nearly caught up. Other things that resonate with what you said and my experiences: in my life I have studied French, German, Spanish, Irish, Welsh, Latin, and ASL - none for very long other than French which I studied for 14 years. I have never ever been good at oral/aural languages but at one point I was the best in the class at written translation. I can still translate Latin by sight. I've started taking an edX ASL Chereology (visual linguistics) course because I figure if I understand the components my ability to understand the signs will go up; I really don't get that whole 'ah,beh,keh' alphabet thing... not sure we did that at my school; I look at the components of words/etymology instead of semantics most of the time (my favourite example about how etymology effects words is comparing diaphragm and schizophrenic which have the same root "phren-" from the greek meaning stomach/belly/mind because that's where the greeks thought your mind was located); and probably more that i forgot in the course of typing this all out. At one point I thought I might be dyslexic because my spelling is really really really bad but my reading is really really good so it can't be dyslexia... I'm still not sure what's going on there tbh.

[@ambcook]

This is extremely eye opening. I've known I'm hyperlexic, but some of the things you mentioned I definitely experience and didn't realize they are related to hyperlexia. I am obsessed with root words, and I was just telling my husband the other day how fascinating prefixes and suffixes are. I actually had a really shitty boyfriend in college who was always telling me my obsession with my phonetics class was ridiculous. I just found it completely fascinating that you can write things with phonetic symbols and read them that way. I didn't understand phonemes or phonics when I was a kid either. In fact, I was spelling perfectly until a teacher was telling us to sound it out. Then I was spelling things wrong because the sounds didn't match up to the letters. I actually got into trouble because of this, my mom had to come in for a parent teacher conference because of it. The teacher's suggestions made me regress in my spelling. It's angering thinking back on it. I was reading at 2 or 3, my mom said I could read the words in the newspaper or if we drove by a sign. But it's hard for me to read context in certain situations on the internet when someone types something, I read it the wrong way because I can't "read between the lines" and cannot "read" context very well.

[@Bloom_LaurieSoileau]

Yes, yes, and AMEN. Certified Life Coach for ADHD adults, here; diagnosed in adulthood after both daughters were. Noticed ASDers gravitate toward my practice "by chance". I'm aware of symptom "overlap" I inhale everything ADHD/neuroscience, but it's taken me too long to recognize I myself have far more than an "symptom overlap" with ASD. You're a gem- and I admire your determination to get your videos out here! This one put me over the top; I've run out of fresh ways to express, "Oh my gosh- ME, TOO!!" Thank you muchly:-*

[@joyful_tanya]

I "taught myself to read" at 2 1/2 years old. They skipped me ahead. I'm 55 now and I'm considering that I am autistic, because both of my children are on the autism spectrum. My son learned to read at 3 1/2. And I devoured books. My parents wouldn't let me know what I scored on the IQ tests in school. My daughter had difficulty learning to read because I was baffled by phonics too. My son did the same thing! "Firestone" on a sign as we drove, he "read" it! I went to nursing school and I put my notes on note cards and I had 100% recall through my prerequisites and nursing courses. I could close my eyes and see my note cards. My daughter has auditory processing deficiency. Wow. Thank you for connecting A LOT of dots for me! As I get older it's harder for me to "mask" and certain compulsive activities are soothing. Like doing research. Choosing to traverse the rabbit holes is both soothing and intellectually challenging. Explains also why I took etymology as an English elective! Word roots and origins are fascinating! Thanks again for helping me to discover more about myself! 🙏🏻

[@janellephinney7518]

I am autistic, found out at age 41. I was hyperlexic, too. In fact, I had selective mutism, too. I refused to speak to the other children in my pre-school classes. When my teachers found out I could read well, I was allowed to do the Storytime readings. Reading aloud was pretty much the only time my voice was heard at that time in my life - other than around family, I was comfortable speaking at home. I am a musician and taught myself to read music, too. I don’t ever remember learning to read music. I started piano lessons and just skipped those learn-to-read pages in the books. I also have an auditory processing disorder which has probably been the source of most of my frustrations in life as I look back. The extreme difference between my visual and auditory capabilities is confusing to everyone, including myself. And, auditory processing disorder as a musician is definitely impairing.

[@tracik1277]

Janelle Phinney I can relate in some ways. Having such a diverse range in abilities over many subjects is certainly is very frustrating.

[@tracik1277]

Love this topic, very interesting! My older sister took care of me as a baby because my mum was ill. She says she read to me a lot and that I began reading words out of magazines and newspapers at the age of two. I was definitely reading and writing fluently before starting school. I started at early at age 4 as well and I distinctly remember sitting on the floor with the other kids being shown flash cards with 3 and 4 letter words and thinking, ‘Can’t you lot do this already?’ I read through all the ‘baby’ books in the first week or two and they didn’t know what to do with me so they put me in the next year up, I can’t remember how all that worked out in terms of how long I spent in which school year, but I remember being told I had a reading age of 13 when I was only 6. I was given older children’s books to read, and whilst I could technically read out the words, I did not know what they all meant, and nobody seemed to realise or question that. This was in the early 1970’s, and the teachers were the kind that only take that job because they enjoy torturing children. By contrast, I have always had problems with figures and arithmetic, so much that even now, budgeting and working out value for money, or knowing I’m getting the right amount of change makes me very anxious and confused. I think there is certainly an issue (or at least there was when I was growing up) that if a child is intelligent in one area (especially reading/writing) it is assumed they should be that way across the board and should also be well behaved and obedient. Not always the case!!

[@McFlingleson]

I took me a lot longer than other people to learn how to read, but once I did learn how, I was better at it than everyone else.

[@emilyanne1426]

Wow this is fascinating! I am waiting on my diagnostic assessment but I've suspected for years that I'm autistic (I'm a 31 yr old female). I had no idea this was related to autism but my mom always tells this story about how when I was two and a half years old I demanded that she buy me "Hooked on Phonics" which was a system for learning to read that I had seen advertised on TV. It's even more interesting to hear some of the differences with the verbal aspects because that is also much harder for me - and I was actually in speech language therapy for in my first year of school despite already reading at a high level. Thanks for all of the valuable information, Sam!

[@lavendargooms2056]

This reminds me of one of my mom's favorite stories about me. We were at a harvest festival and I started reading signs people had posted at their stalls. Since I had just started school for the first time a few weeks earlier I must have been teaching myself to read for a while beforehand. My mom is one of the least observant people ever so this shocked her and she talks about it all the time now as one of the first times she realized how unpredictable I am to her.

[@stevesloan5935]

Good video. I'm hyperlexic and prob also autistic. An "IQ" video to which you alluded would be an interesting follow-up. :)

[@Stormbrise]

I started reading around age three and by first grade I had an argument with my first grade teacher with the Jack & Jill book. In the circle when it was my turn to read I read the whole book and wouldn’t stop. She told me I was guessing the words from the pictures. And I wouldn’t take it from her. I went home that day and told my mother who marched down to the school and principal last office. He got out the book, covered the pictures, I read it, he then Went on to the next level. I was out into third year reading by the end of that. However spelling sucks, because I was told by that same third year reading teacher to spell it like it sounds, and I’m deaf in one ear. But I can look at list of words , multiple choice and pick the correct spelling. However I have to do this kinetically by writing them down on a separate sheet. Oh I’m autistic and I like your bit of sarcasm about growing out of autism.

[@garyfrancis5015]

Stormbrise That's a joke at a public opionon. That autism is only for boys. And they grow out of autism in adulthood.

[@dailydoseoftabitha6239]

Thank you for telling us that! The script while reading! I’ve been struggling with my videos

[@peachofhat]

This is so interesting! I'd never heard of this before but it makes so much sense for me. I was reading extremely young and I couldn't stop - to the point that it became distressing/overstimulating. I would close my eyes on car trips because if I was looking out the window I couldn't help but read every single sign and number plate we would go past, the words were a cacophony in my head!

[@kateaye3506]

Yup. I read at 2 yrs old. I communicate so much better via writing. I am selective mute, so makes sense. Both my boys were not too interested in reading at an early, but could if they wanted to. They demonstrated the ability.

[@unski7051]

I was a hyperlexic kid but I've only just now, thanks to this video, understood why language learning in general is so easy to me! You mentioned the thing about understanding etymology rather than semantics, and now it makes perfect sense to me. I see these connections between words in different related languages and it's really easy for me to read a language I don't really know. On top of my native Finnish I only speak English, German and Swedish, but I can read languages like Latin, Italy, Dutch and Estonian pretty fluently, and understand the context of for example French or Portuguese texts. I've never *tried* to learn any of these additional languages, but I constantly draw these equations between the languages I do know and the new language I'm currently reading. I don't know how to explain this better, but sometimes I can see the etymological history between two cognates and what kind of changes in these languages have lead to the differing cognates. I've always thought it's just the autistic special interest thing where I've always been super interested in languages, but now that I think about it, mere interest doesn't explain how Latin nearly completely opened up to me once I became fluent in English.

[@Luisa-bt2wr]

the thing about saying "what?" is also SO TRUE for me. like, i heard what they said, i just ask "what" to have a little more time to respond. i always just thought of it as, idk, a quirk i made up and then just kept repeating for no reason, but hm. now that you've mentioned it, it might indeed have something more to then just "no reason".

[@julieabraham3566]

Yes, needing that extra second to internalize what they said the first time, I GET THAT! Instead of an awkward silent pause while you're taking things in, you force the other person to talk over the silence so that it's not awkward.

[@egg_bun_]

Even if I KNOW I heard what they said, I still say it. It just takes me a moment to process things. 100% me

[@ferretferret3206]

I could read and write before school, then was forced to learn ITA and now am an odd combination of hyperlexic and dyslexic. I so agree with you about phonics.

[@YoSamdySam]

Are you hyperlexic? How do you describe the way you learned to read and the way you process written language?

[@AutomaticDuck300]

I don't know a lot about my childhood, I've blocked a lot of it out due to the painful memories associated with it. I have been told that I was very delayed in speaking, but I do speak 3 languages and have worked as a translator/proof reader for many years. So maybe there's some merit in this theory of language proficiency. Also, I don't think I mask as such, but I have learned strategies to socialise better. Most people say now that they would never tell I'm autistic.

[@amazon4662]

I don't know whether I would qualify as hyperlexic but was definitly a very early reader, and process written information much faster than spoken. I also have had my hearing tested multiple times because my auditory processing is so slow. Only realised a few months ago (after watchng one of your videos) that I am probably autistic and this explains a lot.

[@garyfrancis5015]

mazziemarie Not responding to my name to the register. My mum tell me I did that. I did I like it? absolutely not. I felt like a kid with a broken brain at school. There were times at junior school I walked around the playground like a zombie because I forgot to organise the play time or the events. But after school was normal child behaviour I go round kids houses. But secondary school that stop. I see no friends outside of school that wasn't normal. But I didn't feel like it wasn't normal at the time, Attwood say in this aspergers lecture. Junior school manageable. Secondary school wheel some off. Yes my experience, but my tires where rubbing to canvass up to end of junior school. Then the wheel fell off in secondary school to use the metaphor. To be brutally honest with myself.

[@blueberrymuffin_144]

Yo Samdy Sam I physically can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read, like, it’s ingrained into my head.

[@alexpoulpe979]

I'm autistic and based on your video probably hyperlexic. I taught myself to read on the many tomes of my grandma's Encyclopedia Universalis which I ADORED. I started reading middle grade books around age 5 and at age 7-8 I was starting to read YA. I couldn't understand children's books mediocre content and I was baffled by all the kids my age reading them. Like you I had all my autistic traits attributed to a high IQ! But at the same time, I was classified as having an average to low development of spoken language, and had speaking issues up until age 8-9 (with many prononciation difficulties). I'm now a linguist (working on a PhD), a librarian, and have studied the grammar of 10+ languages, including ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian! When I was finally diagnosed with autism, this all finally made sense but I remember it being so confusing as a child. What I liked the most was when you spoke about reading your videos and not making words on the spot: I'm exactly the same!!! People think I'm so bright and well spoken when I teach or make a video etc, when actually I'm more or less reading my (very good) notes but can't improvise consistent sentences to save my life. I never thought this could be related to hyperlaxia and autism, but thanks to you, I realise it definitely could be. *Ps: English is not my first language at all though I teach in English) *Pps: my ears were also regularly tested because I never answered right away (to this day I still need people to repeat at least twice to realise I'm being spoken to). This was ultimately attributed to very bad behaviour and everyone treated me like this naughty kid who didn't care about anything. When in truth I just hadn't heard them at all.

[@morganstills4412]

As a former SLP in training and a linguist, that sounds EXACTLY like auditory processing disorder!! It has absolutely nothing to do with your hearing acuity (how well you can hear in ideal conditions) and really starts looking holistically at hearing and the processing of that. I also think I am (mildly?) hyperlexic. I was reading fluently by the time I entered kindergarten and was always 1-2 grade levels ahead in terms of reading level through grade school. I also self-identify as autistic and am pretty sure the criteria on the DSM-V you covered in a different video verifies my non-diagnosis in a way! I absolutely adore your channel!!! Thank you for doing this because I feel as though it’s super important to have fun and informative content about Autism!

[@MissCstina]

Thank you for great videos, very well-written/spoken and performed. Through my search for finding the key to my son, now age 3, I discovered hyperlexia, which to a certain extent also explained my own childhood experiences. I have had the same thoughts as you on the subject of hyperlexia 3 vs autism, I agree on learning to mask - I know I did myself. My son has been diagnosed with infantil autism, he has no relations to his peers, no interest in them, and has other develomental challenges. However, he learned to read a year ago (2,5) in Danish and in English as well as skip counting up to 20 while counting up in the thousinds. He now builds, shapes and constructs the alphabets in Russian, Arabic, Greek and ASL as well, he has a keen interest in space, the world of animals and can by a glance tell you if something is an irregular dodecagon or a hexagon cylinder or whatever (and he is never wrong). He knows every single flag of the world as well as being able to recognize them by shape and finding the countries and States of America on the Globe, he even knows most capitals as well. The amazing thing about hyperlexia is how much our children are alike. Their memory is out of this world and their interests are often exactly the same. So greetings to you and your son, it is such a priviledge (and very hard work) to keep up with our children in their special world. Once again thank you for your videos, they helped me a great deal coming to terms with my own autism when I first learned at age 41.

[@hannahr5643]

I'm pretty sure I'm hyperlexic, my mum often talks about how I was recognising brands/brand names as a very young child, and I remember in reception being given more advanced spellings to learn (and learning them like *that*), being given extra grammar exercises to do in the next couple of years, taking the year 6 literacy SATs in year 2 (and doing well on them). I also can't even remember ever reading books that only had a couple of words on the page and I was reading the first Harry Potter book either by the summer before year 1 (5 years old) or before year 2 (6 years old). It's also interesting what you said about language learning and speaking/scripting, ever since I started learning other languages I got it really quickly, I just find it easy to make the connections and see the logic and understand how it works (at least in languages with a latin alphabet!). Up to GCSE my speaking results were also very good because you could basically write down everything you were going to say, i.e. scripting, and memorise it (which I was also very good at...I don't know if I have a photographic memory exactly but after a few times reading something through I could see the next word/sentence in my head), which meant I got high marks on speaking tests too. Which made it surprising when I got to A Level, where you actually have to talk off the cuff, and got a D in my Spanish speaking test (my Spanish teacher actually suggested/I think referred me to the special education unit or similar of my sixth form to get tested - I think he suggested dyspraxia but I'm not sure how that's related to difficulty speaking? - because of this, but he advised that I'd probably need to chase them up to get an answer and I never did haha). That's been a pattern ever since, even doing languages at university I'd only ever get average to poor marks, although I did pass...my second year Spanish just barely though...and my year abroad didn't help with this very much (for many reasons, my mental health was abysmal on my YA and it was the trigger to me starting to consider if I was ND), what did help with my German was working at a call centre (yes I know) because most of the issues were the same/very similar so I could more or less have scripted answers of what to say. I would be really interested in hearing Sam's take on language-learning/living abroad etc as an autistic person, I have a lot of thoughts on it (especially as a language student about the inaccessibility to some/possibly many autistic/ND people (certainly me!) of the compulsory year abroad for the vast majority of UK students doing language degrees). (random aside but I also feel like my language-learning has affected my spelling for the worse! I've always been good at spelling - like Sam said, words just look right or wrong - but I think having similar words in other languages that are spelled slightly differently has affected that somewhat).

[@syc9746]

Thank you for this very insightful video, where you describe my 3 year old son, autistic, hyperplexic, hypernumeracy, can count in other languages, plays piano and much more but doesn’t communicate, you gave an insight into how he is learning and how he sees things

[@emmabrister747]

This is so interesting! I also started reading early (at about 3) and I was reading chapter books and keeping a diary long before my peers at the time were able to do the same. I’m not sure if I am hyperlexic though because I also cannot spell to save my life. As a young child I would use complex words (correctly and with understanding) but I would always spell them phonetically.

[@katerinastrange1085]

The slow auditory makes sense to me. I understand just after things are said. I know I had hearing and other tests as a child but the results were hidden from me. I'm not sure what all the tests I did were for but I remember having to do my spelling tests on a tape recorded too. I would be outside the classroom doing my spelling tests with a teacher's aid while being recorded. Not sure what that was, but it is one of the things I can actually remember.

[@FaerieKanon]

I started writing short stories at the age of 4/5. Full of spelling mistakes first but I wrote a lot! Mostly fanfictions, haha. I learnt how to read by reading car plates. So I could read and write already when I started school. I was so annoyed by the others not being able to read silently for example. Never knew there was a term for this.

[@tracik1277]

Faerie Kanon hahaha! Little kid me was totally annoyed with the other kids not being able to read/write or spell their names lol. My surname is a bit unusual as well.

[@FaerieKanon]

@@tracik1277 Yes! In grade 1 I was told to help the other kids because I knew everything already. But I got so annoyed because I couldn't get what was so difficult about the tasks. 😂😂

[@tracik1277]

Faerie Kanon I was too naughty. I used to stand up and go ‘This is boring! I’m going to go and do drawing!’ No idea about how you were supposed to do as told or follow what everyone else was doing. 😆

[@smallofferings]

Thank you for this - it highlighted a few things for me. I knew I was a ‘precocious reader’ but hadn’t heard the term Hyperlexia until recently. Now I’ve seen your video I know I definitely am and I think I may have the sensory processing issue too. I haven’t been diagnosed as autistic and am not sure whether to go for diagnosis or not, however I am definitely dyspraxic.

[@shoshanafox727]

I could read my mother's novels before I went to grade school, though I didn't understand most of what they were talking about. I don't know when I started reading. Pretty young, I guess. I have a very visual memory of words and of things that I'm interested in. Totally relate to the auditory processing disorder. I'm pretty slow getting things when people talk to me. Interesting video. 👍

[@YoSamdySam]

Thank you!

[@marieker3777]

Great video.. Learning a lot about myself through your channel. I LOVE language and LOVE grammar, never understood how people could misspell something in writing. I was definitely reading milk cartons by the age of 2/3 but was always insecure about my reading and considered myself to be bad at reading throughout my school career, because of information processing issues. Especially in primary school whenever we had to read something in front of class, I would pronounce the words and have no clue what the story was about. As a child I was also always confused with if I should start writing on the right or left side of the page, I would copy the person sitting opposite of me and write sentences perfectly mirrored - Im curious if there's a link. Now at 23, my reading and writing skills are definitely a lot higher than listening and speaking skills. Im looking forward to your next video on working life, because Im struggling with making career/uni choices with my very specific set of talents.

[@nyarparablepsis872]

OMG this explains so much! I'm autistic, have ADHD and am hyperlexic (didn't know that was a thing until now!). Was reading books at four already, and always was very good with language and spelling. I'm proofreading my professor's papers because I catch errors others don't. As you say - the word just looks right, or else it looks wrong. Also, what you say about etymologising is exactly how I deal with words! *feels oddly happy now* Yay I am not a freak!

[@lizjenkin7170]

I'm not sure when I learned to read, but I remember my reading and spelling age always being many years above everybody else. I would always score close to 100% on any reading tests. I've also always had trouble "hearing" - I've always described myself as having hearing problems but being sensitive to sound at the same time. Autistic sensory issues plus auditory processing issues makes total sense! This may also be why I really love to have subtitles on the TV. My family always took the mick out of me for it, but having the subtitles there helps me quickly understand what people are saying, whereas without them I am often a bit behind and struggle to follow the conversations. My husband is happy to have them on, so... it's normal in our house, now. I'm a visual learner without much of a "mind's eye". My spelling is pretty spot-on, but if you ask me how to spell a word, I have to write it down. Thank you, Sam. Yet again, you have given me an epiphany, another "ohhh so THAT'S why I do xyz" moment. I've got lots of info to bring with me to my assessment, which will be scheduled soon! :D

[@Krista2882]

I'm hyperlexic and autistic. I was never diagnosed "hyperlexic", bc I think everyone just assumed my reading skills were highly developed (and also it was the 80s and I didn't get diagnosed with autism until my 30s), but my mom said that I was recognizing letters when I was 2 years old. She was reading the newspaper one time and I went over and just started pointing to letters and saying them. And I was also already reading books before I started kindergarten. I've always been very good at spelling because I picture the words in my mind. I won my 6th grade spelling bee. I don't have an internal monologue, and my thought process is done through pictures and actual images of words. I see them visually in my mind but don't hear them.

[@melindamay1051]

I suspect that I am autistic (I’m still waiting to get evaluated), and I also think that I am hyperlexic. I knew all of the sounds of the alphabet when I was 18 months old, and I was already reading and writing in Spanish by four. I also started learning English as a toddler, and I was pretty much bilingual by six. This video was super interesting! It’s amazing how much I relate to so many things you talk about on this channel.

[@mimijaneco5523]

I have not been diagnosed with either, but I am pretty sure I have both. (I am hoping to start the diagnosis process for Autism after I move this summer.) I was reading by age 4 (maybe earlier) and I always read at really high levels compared to my peers. I constantly read and I think that helped me figure out how to interact with people. I was often just called really shy and quiet because I would observe new people before interacting. I am much better at reading than speaking/listening (which remained true when I learned Persian Farsi) Verbal instructions are difficult for me and I also have a delay and say “what” when people talk to me sometimes and then it clicks before they even repeat themselves. I really appreciate your videos because although I am not officially diagnosed as Autistic, I feel like I’m finally starting to understand myself. I’m finally realizing that I am not just “weird” but my brain just processes things differently.

[@kelso365]

Re phonics: if you have difficulty with auditory processing (as you mentioned), I wonder if learning phonics/phonemic awareness would be less useful to you in learning to read, at least at those early phases of reading acquisition. The science of how we learn to read is an area of special interest for me and I could talk about it all day, so thank you for alerting me about a new rabbit hole for me to go down!

[@morbius7687]

This sounds a lot like me. I'm sure I was reading before I started going to nursery. I used to annoy my parents because on car journeys, I would read all the text I saw - aloud. I too didn't really understand phonics, and I would work out new words in blocks like you said. I do this when I'm learning foreign languages today. Even now I'm 18, I discover English words that I must have long misunderstood because I wasn't aware of the deeper semantics. I love languages, so much so that I'm going to uni to do linguistics in September. As you say, the ability and enjoyment of pattern recognition certainly plays a role in my interest for the subject. Somewhat counterintuitively, I recently began to receive extra time in exams and use coloured filters for reading. This was because I was diagnosed with scotopic sensitivity syndrome (which I'm sure must an autistic sensory difficulty). It makes it difficult for me to read from white paper; the space between the words shimmers and overwhelms the words, and it slows my reading down. Thank you for another interesting video.

[@annakataeva6548]

A hyperlexic autistic with auditory sensory processing disorder here. :) I think you are absolutely right: I am multilingual (also have a linguistics degree), and as I understand now it has been a huge compensation for my auditory issues. My sound processing is jumbled in the same way how dyslexia jumbles one's letters, making them jump around, disappear and reappear. But with me it happens with sounds, which makes me take longer to process. But at the same time my hyperlexia + special interest in historical linguistics balance that side out :) thanks for your videos!

[@cori8489]

I was super excited to see this video! I always told people I taught myself to read, I was reading before kindergarten, my grandma remembers, and I knew things not possible to know. I recently discovered it's a thing called hyperlexia. I'm still trying to find a doctor who can diagnose me with autism spectrum disorder. I also always read really far ahead in class and got in trouble for it. I could not be bothered to slow my reading down for the class, it was painful to do so for me.

[@cori8489]

I have the same issue with auditory issues. I've had hearing testing on numerous occasions. I think I have sensory processing disorder, as I have a lot of sensory issues.

[@cheekywitch]

This is me 100%. I was reading and writing fully by about 2 or 3. I actually got in trouble in kindergarten because I'd get irritated doing the work like ABC's and super simple letter books (basically writing a over and over). I was tested reading at a high school level in 4th grade if I remember correctly. I also refused to talk until about 3ish. Not officially diagnosed, but my dad (who worked with special needs children when I was little) and myself are fairly certain that I'm somewhat autistic. Never knew that was connected.

[@liucyrus22]

Wow that is quite different from my experience. Didn’t really speak before 3 and something, parents were freaked out. Somehow speech therapy got me speaking once I got it. And then I became the excessive babbler to some degree. That auditory thing is something I am quite frustrated about. People usually have to repeat their first sentence to me. Have suspected that I cranked up my headphones too far up and hurt my ears, but my hearing turned out to be fine after so many tests.

[@RosieYoungUrs4ever]

I didnt learn how to read until I was 5 and mom took me out of school to homeschool and teach me. Apparently I was so bored with the material in school i zoned out and caused disruptions. But afterwards I picked up reading and became very advanced. I was holding full conversations with adults around 1 1/2 -2 years old to which an education professional once told my mom to teach me how to read then, but she refused. Nevertheless, all of my earliest memories revolve me being OBSESSED with languages and words. I was trying to learn and thoroughly mimicking Spanish on my own before I could read. We're still not sure what gave me inclination to do so since I wasn't raise in a Spanish speaking household. I used to scribble in attempts to write and once I learned writing filled up all my notebooks with stories. To this day I've grown a language obsession with Spanish, Russian and Korean and most of my high school and college notes are taken in a mixture of the 3.. My native language is English.

[@lowri.williams]

I've been really looking forward to this as a (currently) undiagnosed autistic woman who was comfortably reading at writing by 3 (our childhood handwriting actually looks remarkably similar!). I also grew up bilingual English-Welsh and picked up other languages easily, although I never understood why this was a big deal as it was effortless on my part and I felt a bit of a fraud. So many things here I can relate to and what you said about traits going under the radar because we were 'intelligent' (see also: obedient, polite...) meant other traits got explained away, only to be unpicked 20-30 years later... A trade-off for me has been in my numerical processing skills. I really struggle here and suspect I have discalculia (which, incidentally, is more common in female autistics compared with males). Things like substraction, working out change, processing clock-faces are all a bit exhausting for me. I've got strategies but they all take up a lot more effort (especially with synaesthesia thrown in for Extra Fun). Curious to know if this is something you/your followers experience? But yeah, loved this. Could have written it about myself 😊 Thanks!

[@sukibartlett5459]

I have ADD (as well as other mental conditions) and am hyperlexic, I learned reading and writing at age 2. I wouldn't say I'm typically developed at all lol. I find my hyperlexia really useful because I can skim read really well like if I'm searching for specific information, but in almost any other case I have to read my comprehension is almost nonexistent. Definitely agree when you mention that hyperlexic's sensory prioritization, because sometimes I feel like I have a great auditory memory but only long term, my short term memory is really tricky and flies straight through my brain. Didn't know about hyperlexia as a term until today but also confirms I do have auditory processing disorder symptoms for sure. I love audiobooks since reading as i've gotten older has been harder to do and find time for,

[@olgatsyganenko6287]

Like OMG. I'm 29 and have never in my life thought about having autism... Until now. This whole story is about me. The more I read the comments below the video, the more it's all about me.

[@Li1979Ma]

I read and wrote at 4 years of age. I started to read english at that age and I'm swedish :) I got my aspergers diagnosis at the age of 37.

[@meatsuitoracle5176]

I was definitely hyperlexic as a child; I also spoke in complete sentences and carried on conversations with adults around the age of 2. I'm now strongly suspecting that I'm autistic and have ADHD (I haven't been diagnosed). Thank you so much for sharing your insights :)

It is interesting to hear an autistic mom being very analytic towards her kid. I am looking forward to hear more about your kid development. I don't really know if I am autistic or not, but I did have hyperlexia and my husband is a autistic man with a very high IQ, so we are very likely to have an autistic kid as well and I would like to be (actually feel) a bit more "ready" when the time comes. Thank you for the insightful video.

[@oqAiden]

Wow I didn't know hyperlexia was a thing.. But I definitely regocnize it in myself! I could read before I started school (at age 4) and I've always been super into written language as well. I was diagnosed with autism at age 19. Really interesting to see that there's some kind of connection between autism and hyperlexia beyond just 'being smart'.

[@leslieyancey5084]

Wow, you sound a lot like me! I learned to read when I was still in a high chair, according to my parents and grandparents. I’m good at spelling, grammar, and other languages, but not good at speaking spontaneously. I was diagnosed with ADD at age 8, but I think I may also be autistic. Your videos are really helping me feel not so alone!