I don't know whether "suffer" is quite the right way of expressing Hyperlexia as a condition. I could just as easily write of the joys of reading and writing, the other-worldly ecstasy that comes through being immersed in the world of words. But, yes, with wishes come curses, and with gifts come clauses and conditions.
Every day I learn new and interesting things from autistic people sharing their knowledge and experience with others. Today I learned of something called Hyperlexia, which describes a condition where someone never needed to be taught how to read, they simply knew. That rang so remarkably true of my experience that I decided to investigate. I learn that Hyperlexia is indicated by
a) a person having an exceptional reading ability at an early age without age appropriate language and speech skills;
b) a person reading at levels far beyond what is expected at the age;
c) a person who is fascinated with letters and numbers;
d) a person who has a strong auditory and visual memory;
e) a person who learns best visually;
f) a person who may learn to speak by memorizing phrases, sentences or conversations from movies, TV, or books;
g) a person who is extremely good at decoding language and sounding out words very quickly.
I should leave people to determine the extent to which the above criteria applies to them. I would guess that many people could claim that many of these points apply to them. I will simply repeat what the diagnostician in charge of my assessment told me - autism as a condition is not about ticking the boxes, it is indicated by ticking more of the boxes than most other people, and with an intensity that is 'above and beyond the norm.' Whilst the facts of the matter count for a great deal, the quirks and pecularities can count for a whole lot more. Who isn't 'fascinated' with letters and numbers? The point is that 'fascination' can come in different very different colours, some a lot more vivid than others. I have a lifelong tendency to count the number of words I write.
Who isn't visual? The point is that some apprehend the world visually, learn visually, see the world in pictures, colours, and patterns, very often going beyond facts and meanings to make leaps and establish connections where others see none. Often, the point is much more mundane than that - an image can convey immediately what a lengthy and technically perfect explanation cannot. Some time in the 2000s I did some psychometric test which revealed me to be a 'creative visualist' in my thinking and learning style. For all of the millions of words I have written, I tend not to communicate well with wordy people; for all of the history and philosophy I have studied at the highest levels, I tend not to follow people who explain themselves by way of detailed and complicated arguments. I know for a fact that I click immediately with people who are also visualists.
As for 'memorizing phrases, sentences, or conversations,' I absorb the things I read and watch like a sponge, and then repeat them in exchanges with others. I have on occasions described myself as a walking book - or TV comedy. I also write everything I want to say down before making a telephone call or before a meeting. I plan, prepare, revise, and rehearse. My conversations are written down in advance and held in my head.
I read: “Hyperlexia is when a child starts reading early and surprisingly beyond their expected ability. It's often accompanied by an obsessive interest in letters and numbers, which develops as an infant. Hyperlexia is often, but not always, part of the autism spectrum disorder.”
The descriptions of Hyperlexia struck an immediate chord with me. I can't actually remember being taught to read, and I can't remember ever struggling to read. I can remember being taught to form letters and write. Reading seems to have come so naturally to me that I can't actually remember starting to read, just as I can't remember starting to breathe. The only struggles I remember with respect to reading came with sticking to the set books at school. The books we read as a class bored me rigid. I loved reading in my own time and space and bristled at having to go at the same pace as others, finding their reading out aloud to be slow, monotonous, and lifeless. I would lose interest, lose the thread of the tale, lose my place, and then have teachers thinking I was struggling to read. I was struggling to stay interested whilst my natural speed was curtailed to the tardy speeds of others. The more insightful teachers left me free to choose my own books. Whilst such teachers would spend most of their time patrolling the class to make sure pupils were actually reading, they had to intervene to stop me reading when class activities resumed. Despite struggling badly with exams, I later came to find out that I had the highest reading age in the junior school. That fact is noteworthy given that I was considered to be so poor academically that there was never the merest chance that I would ever have been considered for the 11+ school leaving exam. I was considered to be somewhat slow, even stupid, at school, 'below average' at best. And yet I had the highest reading age!
I don't remember being taught to read. The only thing I remember is getting excited at the sight of a book. Pictures helped draw me in, mind! I distinctly remember reading a book on the Arctic, and being drawn in by the images of ice and blue.
Whilst a lot of Autistic people don't have Hyperlexia, the (quick) 'research' (Google) I've (just) done indicates that pretty much everyone who is Hyperlexic is also autistic. I would strongly advise people who want to know more to read more deeply, as I will when I get the chance. In the words which conclude the reports of those professionals and academics seeking a job for life, 'more research needs to be done.'
Hyperlexic people learn best visually, seek patterns, have a highly focused interest, and have a strong visual memory.
That's true of me. Verbal language goes in one ear and out of the other ear with me.
Difficulties with abstract concepts is an interesting one in respect of my own development. Whilst I have spent years dealing with abstract concepts in philosophy it would be a mistake to take this as evidence against a diagnosis of Hyperlexia. Read my work in any depth, and it soon becomes clear that I am trying to bring philosophy back to its origins in the search for the good life for human beings. The realization of that good life entails the overthrow of the violence and tyranny of abstraction; if I write on the transcendent, I always but always emphasise the incarnation of any ideal in time and place, in concrete particulars and through practices.
Reading on Hyperlexia, it seems that the condition involves a gap that can open up between reading explosion and reading comprehension. That's not that big a problem the further you go in philosophy, mind, where pretty much everyone is struggling to comprehend all the big jaw-cracking words and grandiloquent phrases they are throwing around like confetti. It's little wonder I ended up specialising in Hegel, where every reader seems to suffer from a gap in comprehension.
I'm just intrigued to know - how do people learn to read?
I have no memory at all of learning to read, only of reading and of being read to. I got bored early on being read to and couldn't wait to take control of my own reading. I go quicker and further when I go alone. Looking back, I can see that I was reading things that were advanced for my tender years. In time, I developed the ability to speed read, devouring books at the rate of a page a minute, underlining key points as I went. It sounds shallow, but it wasn't. I read all three volumes of Leszek Kolakowski's massive "Main Currents of Marxism" in no time at all. I still have the books, and you can see the detailed system of note-taking to this day - key lines underlined in pencil, lines in the margin according to importance - one margin for interesting, two lines for further reflection, three lines for essential. I did all of this at the rate of a page a minute. I don't read conventionally from left to right, top to bottom, but see a page as a whole, as if it were a picture. I retained an almost photographic memory of the pages. When I needed an argument, a point, a phrase, a fact, I knew exactly where to go. That's the same as depth of understanding, but it allowed me to cover extensive ground and know the terrain intimately.
But with every wish there comes a curse ...
Signs of Hyperlexia
Precocious, self-taught ability to read words above their age level;
Significant difficulty understanding verbal language;
Intense fascination with letters, numbers, maps, or visual patterns;
Difficulty answering "wh" questions;
Echolalia;
Awkward or unusual social skills;
Difficulty interacting with peers or adults;
Rarely initiates conversations;
Intense need to keep routines (a need for sameness)
Difficulty with transitions;
Difficulty with abstract concepts and thinks in concrete, literal terms;
Specific or unusual fears;
Listens selectively or appears to be deaf;
Sensory sensitivities;
Strong auditory and visual memory.
