Re: early word recognition skills

[Guest guest]

Beth,

My son did that. He will be four in July. He knew his entire alphabet and

could count to 20 before he even turned three. Around October of last year,

he amazed us by reading words spontaneously. For example, my husband has a

hat he wears that has the word 'STRUCTURE' written across the brim. One day

we were riding in the car and my son was holding his Dad's hat and he

pointed to the word and said, " Stra - sure " . Another time a big semi truck

pulled along side us at a stop light. The truck was all white with the word

" Eckerd " written on the side in blue letters (no logos, nothing else but the

word) and he said, " Look, big Eckerd truck. " He did the same thing once

when we drove by a Bennigans. He said, " Ben-gans. Yummy. " Other words he

read that I can remember right now were pizza, Happy Birthday and Walt

Disney World.

My son doesn't have Hyperplexia. I asked about it. The doctor at the

Communications Disorders Clinic said children with Hyperplexia show an

" obsessive-like " pre-occupation with numbers and letters to the distraction

of attending to other things. That team thought in our son's case it was

more of a " logo recognition " type thing. However, my son has never been to

STRUCTURE, the men's clothing store, nor do they have commercials on TV

here. Likewise, he has never been to an Eckerd Drug store as we always go

to Walgreens. Furthermore, the day he read " Happy Birthday " it was just

written in black and white, no banner, no decorations, no party

atmosphere...nothing. Same for Bennigans. We have never stepped foot in

that restaurant with our children. In fact, the one that he read the sign

from was the first in our town and was brand new - hadn't even had their

grand opening yet.

I don't know what it all means. He stopped doing it around January. I was

hoping he would be one of those children that " teach themselves to read " .

It sure was amazing though whenever he would point and read a word out of

the blue. I wish I could have captured that on video atleast once. :-)

KIM

[ ] early word recognition skills

> My 26 month old seems to be displaying an unusual strength for word

> recognition lately. She is pointing to words, such as " yes " , " no " , " go " ,

" stop " ,

> " car " , and " cookie " , and signing them to us, sometimes adding an

appropriate word

> approximation. When her SLP at her school noticed this, she mentioned the

term

> " hyperlexia " , which I was unfamiliar with. when I later looked it up, I

saw

> a couple of characteristics listed that were similar to those seen in my

> daughter, but many, especially the behavioral/ social characteristics,

were really

> off the mark. She is totally appropriate socially, and has never had

language

> regression- she never had the language to begin with! My concern is that

> using this term in diagnosis is innapropriately labeling her on to the

autism

> spectrum- which is not an appropriate or accurate for my daughter.

> I was wondering if any one else has seen anything like this in their

child,

> or if any of you have better info. about hyperlexia than what I have read.

Can

> children with apraxia sometimes simply possess unusually strong skills in

> visual memory, without necessarily being labeled autistic sevant? I know

that my

> daughter isn't " reading " so to speak- she is simply remembering what she

has

> seen and labeling these words much like she would a picture. She doesn't

know

> her alphabet, or seem to recognize individual letters.

> Any info. or insight you could give me would be helpful. It's frustrating

> when people just throw labels at me simply because they don't seem to know

or

> understand exactly what is really going on with my child.

> -Beth

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

BETH

IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYTIME ONE OF OUR CHILDREN SHOW A STRENGTH IT IS IMMEDIATELY

TAKEN AS , " WHAT'S WRONG " INSTEAD OF A TOOL THAT CAN BE USED FOR TEACHING OUR

CHILDREN. MY SON AT 4 1/2 HAS A VERY LARGE VOCABULARY. THOUGHT HE WAS

APRAXIC, BUT NOW NOT SO SURE. MAY HAVE CAPD BUT CAN'T TEST UNTIL AGE 7. HE

DISPLAYED PDD OR AUTISTIC QUALITIES WHEN HE WAS YOUNGER, OBSESSING OVER TOYS,

NOT

TOO SOCIAL BUT VERY AFFECTIONATE WITH ME AND NO SPEECH TILL 3 1/2 YEARS OLD.

THE ALMOST PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY MY SON DISPLAYS IS ONE OF HIS BETTER THINGS GOING

FOR HIM. HE IS READING, BUT MOST OF IT IS MEMORIZING WORDS. BUT ISN'T THAT

WHAT READING IS???? HYPERLEXIA WAS MENTIONED WITH MY SON ALSO AND UNLESS IT'S

DIAGNOSED BY A PROFESSIONAL I WOULDN'T SAY THAT A CHILD HAS IT. THEY COULD

BE A VERY VISUAL LEARNER, AS MY SON IS. THERE ARE GREAT VIDEO TAPES THAT I USE

WITH HIM AND HE HAS HAD TREMENDOUS INCREASE IN NOT ONLY WORDS BUT SOCIAL

INTERACTIONS AND DOES DO HIS " TV TALK " BUT NOW IT'S MORE FUNCTIONAL AND

CONVERSATIONAL, WHICH IS WHAT I WAS AFTER. I, IN NO WAY ARE AFFILIATED WITH

THESE

WEBSITES BUT THEY ARE WHAT HELPED MY VISUAL LEARNER.

WWW.WATCHMELEARN.COM

WWW.SPECIALKIDS1.COM

WWW.SMALL-FRY.COM

THESE VIDEOS ARE MORE EXPENSIVE THAN YOUR AVERAGE SESAME STREET OR BLUE'S

CLUES BUT I FEEL THEY ARE MUCH MORE INFORMATIONAL AND FACTUAL AND MY SON

ACTUALLY

WILL CHOOSE THESE OVER HIS OTHER VIDEOS. AND OUR VIDEO LIBRARY IS QUITE

EXTENSIVE.

IF HYPERLEXIA IS GIVEN AS A DIAGNOISES, PLAY INTO THE CHILD'S ABILITIES

INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON THE NEGATIVE. EACH CHILD IS DIFFERENT AND WHAT WORKS FOR

ONE MAY OR MAY NOT WORK FOR ANOTHER.

LORI

[Guest guest]

" IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYTIME ONE OF OUR CHILDREN SHOW A STRENGTH IT IS

IMMEDIATELY

TAKEN AS , " WHAT'S WRONG " INSTEAD OF A TOOL THAT CAN BE USED FOR

TEACHING OUR

CHILDREN. "

Lori -it's so funny you say this. Tanner tests above average on

receptive skills when appropriate nonverbal tests are used. His

teacher and other professionals that work with him/test him tell me

how they are amazed at how when they describe to Tanner what he

needs to do " he appears to memorize the answers to the test based on

the pretest explanation " Well...if he wasn't speech impaired -

wouldn't that be considered a...good thing?!

I always state the same about our children -what others view as

strange -I view as a sign of greatness. It's like the story of the

butterfly I posted yesterday -because our children go through the

early struggles they do -most of them appear to have developed this

amazing memory that is a great asset for being a top student. As

you say -much of reading is memory.

Today while I was driving Dakota and Tanner to school Tanner was

reading a book that had the word " great " in it. He knows the word

is " great " but he put his fingers over the " gr " and said " mommy this

is eat..so then this should be greet " I just reminded him that's

the reason it's so 'great' he has such a 'great' memory -because the

word 'great' should sound like 'greet' but it doesn't.

And to Kim -since I don't live far from you I can verify that the

Bennigans is brand new. I also know however that we talked about

the new buildings going up prior to going into them which I'm sure

Tanner and Dakota overheard. That's possibly what went on with your

son too. I'm not saying that your son isn't sounding out words -he

very well could be. But I don't believe what he is doing is just

reading logos either. I believe he has the positive trait I've been

talking about -the incredible memory.

Due to lack of awareness and appropriate testing for our population

of children -which is a rapidly rising group -far higher than

autistic children http://www.cherab.org/information/geiermd.html

even though that's where everyone wants to put all the children, I

don't believe that the professionals are really able to know just

how intelligent children with multifaceted communication impairments

are yet. They are only just now having a chance to show us -up till

now many of them unfortunately fell into the MR classification -like

. http://www.cherab.org/news/.html I'll never forget

when 's mom Robin told me that the first thing typed

into a computer was " I am not retarded " .

We need new tests developed just for our population of

children/teens/adults. Perhaps one of our brilliant children will

develop one since it appears most don't even see how inappropriate

it is to use a verbal based test to assess the receptive or

cognitive ability of a verbal disabled individual.

http://www.cherab.org/news/verbaldisabledtest.html

As far as the question " was he ever apraxic? " unless you never put

him on EFAs -just like the tootsie pop -the world may never know.

This is why we need research!

=====

[Guest guest]

It is my (humble) opinion that our children possess interesting and

unique talents. Some children are so darned visual and will retain

things in their visual memory that make your jaw drop. My son is

like that with mechanical things. See it once... figures it out...

will generalize and be able to figure out other mechanical items.

Don't allow your child to be lumped on to a spectrum just because

they cannot figure her out! We are in the exact same boat, but with

different strengths and deficits. Ian will draw the PDD-NOS

diagnosis from first time observers. Social skill deficits are the

key to classic Autism. If she is age appropriate in her

interactions with you and her peers, than don't worry! I'd ask a

professional about that one. I was surprised at what was expected

of a 3 year old (my son's age). I had been so used to his

play/social skills that I thought they were 'normal'. They are...

for a 2 year old.

If your daughter had normal speech development and was beginning to

recognize words by sight they'd call her a bright little girl! Why

not call her a bright little girl with a speech disorder? My middle

child was writing her name at 2.5 years. Nobody ever mentioned that

was a problem...

Be proud of your little munchkin! Keep working on the speech and

pay attention to any changes in her skills or behavior that cause

concern. Other than that, ENJOY!

Take care,

Pam

> My 26 month old seems to be displaying an unusual strength for

word

> recognition lately. She is pointing to words, such

as " yes " , " no " , " go " , " stop " ,

> " car " , and " cookie " , and signing them to us, sometimes adding an

appropriate word

> approximation. When her SLP at her school noticed this, she

mentioned the term

> " hyperlexia " , which I was unfamiliar with. when I later looked it

up, I saw

> a couple of characteristics listed that were similar to those seen

in my

> daughter, but many, especially the behavioral/ social

characteristics, were really

> off the mark. She is totally appropriate socially, and has never

had language

> regression- she never had the language to begin with! My concern

is that

> using this term in diagnosis is innapropriately labeling her on to

the autism

> spectrum- which is not an appropriate or accurate for my

daughter.

> I was wondering if any one else has seen anything like this in

their child,

> or if any of you have better info. about hyperlexia than what I

have read. Can

> children with apraxia sometimes simply possess unusually strong

skills in

> visual memory, without necessarily being labeled autistic sevant?

I know that my

> daughter isn't " reading " so to speak- she is simply remembering

what she has

> seen and labeling these words much like she would a picture. She

doesn't know

> her alphabet, or seem to recognize individual letters.

> Any info. or insight you could give me would be helpful. It's

frustrating

> when people just throw labels at me simply because they don't seem

to know or

> understand exactly what is really going on with my child.

> -Beth

>

>

>