Hyperlexia Symptoms

The severity, frequency, and grouping of the following symptoms will determine an actual diagnosis

 A precocious ability to read words far above what would be expected at a child’s age
 Child may appear gifted in some areas and extremely deficient in others
 Significant difficulty in understanding verbal language
 Difficulty in socializing and interacting appropriately with people
 Abnormal and awkward social skills
 Specific or unusual fears
 Fixation with letters or numbers
 Echolalia (Repetition or echoing of a word or phrase just spoken by another person)
 Memorization of sentence structures without understanding the meaning
 An intense need to keep routines, difficulty with transitions, ritualistic behavior

Additional Symptoms:
 Normal development until 18-24 months, then regression
 Listens selectively / appears to be deaf
 Strong auditory and visual memory
 Self-stimulatory behavior (hand flapping, rocking, jumping up and down)
 Think in concrete and literal terms, difficulty with abstract concepts
 Auditory, olfactory and / or tactile sensitivity
 Difficulty answering “Wh–” questions, such as “what,”
“where,” “who,” and “why”