Hyperlexia@GeoCities.com
By - Shirin de Silva
I was myself hyperlexic as a child, and had poor receptive/expressive oral language,
combined with outstanding reading ability and written language skills and exquisitely
sensitive hearing. This disorder is not CAPD, and does not respond to certain CAPD
techniques such as Fast Forword. (I have an adopted seven year old daughter who does
have CAPD, and does do Fast Forword, and while I aced the STAR test, which she failed
miserably, she does better at the more basic auditory games than I do.). It is a language
learning disorder.
I think that kids like this need to learn language by reading and writing, as they tend to
have too short an auditory memory to learn language from listening and talking. They
need to read widely and constantly, and should be taught to visualize what they are
reading, as well as to periodically stop and summarize what they have read. They need to
write MUCH more than other kids, as writing is for them, what talking is for most.
European comic books like the Tintin and Snowy, and the Asterix the Gaul series are
GREAT for learning how to visualize, and any visually oriented kid will love them. Check
the upscale bookstores for that kind of book. Book reports (which I assign to my daughter
on a weekly basis) are good for learning how to summarize.
Kids also need to be taught to develop strategies for coping with their deficiencies. For
example, when I listen to someone, I mentally take notes on what they say on a blackboard
inside my mind. I then read what I have mentally written, and so can respond to their
input. This avoids my having to rely on my extremely poor auditory memory. Drama
lessons are a helpful and a fun way of teaching kids like your daughter and me, the subtle
social cues that they otherwise miss.
Language therapy focusing on categorization and organization of language is very helpful.
Critical and abstract skills can and should be directly taught. I finally managed to learn
how to criticize literature by reinterpreting the texts assigned as mathematical equations.
(My logic went like this. Suppose we assume that the book is an equation, and the
characters and objects are variables, which represent ideas. Free-associating, there are
three volcanos in Le Petit Prince. What else goes in threes? The Holy Trinity? Perhaps
not. The Three Fates? An interesting idea, but then why would one volcano be dead? I
can't make it work. The Three Stooges? Unlikely. The Three Virtues; Faith, Hope, and
Charity? Hmmm. Then, given that one of the volcanos is extinct, that would mean that
one of the virtues of the Little Prince was dead. Faith... Ah, yes.. I can say that his Faith
was dead. In which case, perhaps I can say that the Little Prince is Everyman? Yes, that
works. Then this equation is some kind of exploration of the Faith of Everyman? Good, I
am getting somewhere.) I was considered a very creative, and abstract thinker by the time
I got out of college , but frankly, a computer program could have written my stuff instead.
Incidentally, it may encourage you to know that I have done quite well. Although I was
quite lost the first few years of school, I began to compensate by fifth grade or so. (I was
considered educable mentally retarded in Kindergarten. My IQ tested at 101 in third
grade - which I repeated - 132 in 10th grade, and finally stabilized at 150 in medical school.
IQ is heavily dependent on verbal ability. I am now a successful American physician
specialized in occupational medicine, and cross-trained in safety engineering and industrial
hygiene. This ultra-technical background allows me to spend less time talking to people (an
area of weakness), and more time dealing with written ideas and mathematical concepts,
both of which are strengths for me.
Shirin followed up this wonderful letter with a second, sharing further insights on hyperlexia:
First, I think that there isn't any social skill that cannot be learned from the written word,
whether it is How to Win Friends and Influence People; the art of telling jokes (texts aimed
at comedians explain this very well); the art of projecting empathy (books aimed at
salesmen and psychiatrists explain that); or the art of managing people. Similarly, while I
still have rotten ability to "read" people, I haven't been rooked for over a decade. This is
because I now automatically get things in writing before I make commitments, and I have
excellent ability to determine if something which is written is likely to be a scam. I think
most hyperlexics should be able to compensate well enough, if they think of their literary
strengths as being their primary means of communication, rather than thinking of their
ability to read as some sort of splinter skill.
Second, it may not occur to you to teach your kid to speed-read. (After all, reading is his
area of strength.) However, my speed-reading course was very helpful to me. This is
because when I speak, I see the words flicker across my mental screen as I say them. Being
able to read quickly makes it possible for me to speak quickly and naturally, and still have
enough mind left over to do this with verbal and facial "expression". (I translate between
print and voice when I speak, much as a person whose first language is Spanish might
translate Spanish thoughts into English words.)
Third, you may be concerned about the issue of eye contact. Making eye contact is an
important social gesture in the United States, and most people seem to believe that a steady
gaze reflects inward honesty and good faith. As a child, I found that many people found
my lack of eye contact unnerving, and I was frequently admonished by my teachers to look
at them, while they were talking. However, I find that when I look people directly in the
eye, I start to focus on their eye movements. Since I use visual memory as an assist to
auditory memory, this focus impairs my auditory concentration, and it becomes quite hard
for me to understand what the person is saying, (especially if the subject is complex; I have
no difficulty maintaining eye contact when singing a lullaby to my daughter, or goo-gooing
to a baby.) As a youngster, when I dutifully attempted to make eye contact, I would find
my gaze slipping aside as I juggled comprehension and social cues. This tended to offend
the speaker who often misinterpreted it as a sign of a shifty character, or a lack of interest,
or both. Things would spiral downwards from there. I still can't concentrate on someone's
complex speech and maintain "real" eye contact at the same time. What I do instead, is
this:
If I am conversing with someone else, and am separated by them by ordinary social
distance (2-3 feet), I make no attempt to look them in the eye. Instead, I look at the area
between, and just below, their eyes. (Almost everybody is quite unable to detect that I am
NOT looking them in the eye under these circumstances.) Since this area doesn't move, I
am able to keep my eyes fixated steadily, thus reassuring the owner of the eyes as to my
good intentions while still comprehending whatever is being said. If I am conversing at less
than social distance with someone who is not a good enough friend for me to level with him
about my disability - a colleague and I have our heads together over an X-ray, for example
- I either look at the thing rather than at the person, or I look away (with the air of some
one who is thinking deeply.) I do NOT look directly at the person unless I can either step
back to social distance, and use the first technique, or unless the conversation becomes
sufficiently simple - a joke, perhaps - as to permit me to make real eye contact without
risking comprehension.
Incidentally, my daughter's auditory processing time on the STAR test, has gone from ~450 ms (bottom one percent) to 10 ms (normal range) after Fast Forword. While she still has a (resolving) expressive language problem, she no longer has CAPD. YESSS!
I want to express a special "Thank You" to Shirin for sharing her experience with us.
This Web Site was created by Charlotte Miller. I welcome your comments and feedback. Please write to me at
Hyperlexia@GeoCities.com
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