New- Son with Hyperlexia
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| Mon, 10-30-2006 - 11:29am |
Hello, my name is Carla and I have a 3 year old (4/03) son; Shawn diagnosed with hyperlexia. He is quite amazing! He is currently reading about at a first grade level and is totally obsessed with books. He was a very late talker and is just now starting to put 3-4 word sentences together. He loves anything to do with numbers, letters, shapes and colors; so puzzlez, books and anything that requires real analytical thinking is appealing to him. Social situations are incredibly difficult for him. He doesn't have melt downs or anything like that, he just kind of withdraws into himself until he is familiar with his surroundings and people.
He just started a typical preschool in September and is doing fabulous. He is interacting with the other children and is even playing games like tag, train station and things like that. Circle or time has proven to be the most difficult porton of the day because it requires a lot verbalization. This past week his teacher said that he voluntarily participated for the first time and answered questions and even praised the teacher by saying, "Good Job, teacher Mary". She was soo excited.
We have seen such tremendous growth in is speech and social skills over the past month or two. We are really optimistic about his future and that things will continue to become easier for him over the next few years.
My concern: his teacher at the ESD wants us to get him evaluated for autisim. We are not sure that this is the road we want to take just yet. We have always known that he does share some characteristics but do not feel that he meets all of the criteria. Children with Hyperlexia can have the diagnosis independent from Autisim while others will have both. Our fear is that because the ESD does not recognize Hyperlexia without Autisim they will improperly label him. We have all agreed that even if he does have Autisim, they wouldn't be treating him any diferently than they are right now so my husband and I don't see the need in getting a diagnosis right now if the course of treatment wouldn't change.
They say that children with Hyperlexia often show dramatic improvement with their social skills between the ages of 4-6 years. And we (parents, extended family and teachers) are seeing huge improvements lately.
So after all of my rambling...
Does anyone else have a child with hyperlexia? What is your experience?
Should we have him officially evaluated for Autisim?
I am so confused
Carla

Carla,
Welcome to our cozy little corner of the Internet. Please feel free to make yourself at home here. We have comfy chairs, food,
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
good luck to you both!
Ditto what the others said. My son has always been very social, read quite fluently very young, and does have mild autism. Having your ds evaluated for autism also means ruling out autism! A good diagnostician is not going to dx him with autism if he doesn't have it. But also your son is very young yet, the real social difficulties don't necessarily show up until they are older, as demands during socialization are simply not as high when they are younger.
I would also go for as thorough an evaluation as is possible, because knowledge is power. There may not be therapeutic approaches you want to add at this point, but a complete evaluation will show you areas that you may need to think about in the future. Noone ever suggested autism to us until our son was 6 and a half, and we are clear that his autism is sort of "yes" and sort of "no" -- but the part of him that IS on the spectrum does give him trouble, and had we not known about it, we would have attributed his trouble to other things (shyness, exhaustion, youth) and not provided all the added social assistance that has really contributed to his growing skills and confidence.
Good luck, let us know how things are going!
yours,
Sara
ilovemalcolm
First, I agree with what everyone else has said.
Second, my oldest is hyperlexic and also ASD. It can be fairly common to have the 2 co-exist, however. BIG HOWEVER, hyperlexia is a good thing in a child with ASD. There is a load of potential and the motivation of books and reading are fantastic strengths that can be used to help over come the challenges.
I would agree to evaluate him. If he has autism waiting is not going to change that however, early intervention can make a big difference. Plus, he has a load of good skills and positives on his side to help him.
Renee
Welcome to the board Carla!