Spurred by Noah's comment in class, I did some digging around about hyperlexia. It's really fascinating! I guess it is usually found in people with autism, but what essentially happens is that the kids start recognizing words and becoming really attached to words very early on. Sometime kids will even be able to recite the alphabet by 18 months. However, they are delayed in other language and cognitive development. They may know words but they don't know the rules of a conversation. Here is one of the earlier articles about hyperlexia. (Ignore the random paragraphs in Spanish in the first 2 pages) In this article, they study 12 children who have hyperlexia and try to look for patterns. I think it's a worthy point that most of the parents were really proud of their children's special ability. Of course, that positive feedback may be reinforcing but for people with autism, that social dimension is lost.
Thoughts?
A forum for all of our ideas, thoughts, and links related to our PSYCH 109S course.
Blog Archive
-
▼
2007
(100)
-
▼
August
(55)
- I was wondering if an alzheimer´s patient has more...
- Animal Language
- conection between retrograde and anterograde amnesia
- Cognews.com
- Multi-Tasking
- Jabberwocky
- Another Book
- Book Recommendation
- 50 First Dates Reply
- Alzheimer's
- Controlling Neurons
- Awesome Book
- Mouse Brains.
- 50 First Dates
- Stroop effect
- Perception
- Jamais Vu
- Placebos
- 12 Angry Men
- Writing Backwards
- How Animals Think
- As a last contribution to the blog, I would just l...
- Aphasia
- Reverse Turing Test
- Turing Test
- Unanswered Questions...
- Colorado Adoption Project
- Model of Comprehension
- Thanks everyone!
- What is the matrix?
- Lefties really more creative?
- For all of the musicians out there...
- Demos on heuristics and the Wisconsin Card Sorting...
- False Memories
- God or Not...
- Daniel Oppenheimer: 2006 Ig Nobel Award for litera...
- ASIMO
- Transformational Grammar
- random question
- South Korea draws up code of ethics -- for robots
- Center for the Mind, Brain, and Computation
- Thinking about the Turing Test
- Prototype Theory: Central Tendency vs. Attribute F...
- Artificial intelliegence
- Funny Farm
- Jabberwacky AI Program
- "Programming"?
- What's it mean to be human, anyway?
- Anterograde Amnesia
- The McGurk Effect
- Brain electrodes help man speak again
- Autism
- Tests for Aphasia
- Hyperlexia
- Body Worlds
-
▼
August
(55)
8 comments:
In the post I just posted on the main page, I talked about Kelly, a girl with autism, who I volunteer with. Sometimes I will be working with her and she will repeat phrases from a movie she watched that day, and she will say it over and over the whole day. Is this a form of hyperlexia? I read in your post that hyperlexia is the recognition of and attachment to certain words. Would her selection and repetition of certan phrases be an example of that? Or is it just something completely different?
Lee, thanks for sharing your experiences with Kelly and autism. I think in order to know whether or not she has hyperlexia, you'd have to know about her history a bit more. At what age did she start reading? Does she prefer reading to socializing with people? From what I understand, people with hyperlexia are really, really attached to words and reading, to the point where it is abnormal. Does Kelly do that? I think it probably goes beyond just repeating words and phrases over and over. That might be something else autism related.
I think some levels of autism just cause them to repeat themselves b/c they keep obsessing on a question.
Thanks I-Chant. I don't know much about Kelly's history, but after reading your most recent comment, I don't think that has hyperlexia. Or if she does, I don't think it causes her repetition of the movie phrases. I think that is related to something else that has to do with her autism. Hyperlexia is really interesting though. Thanks for sharing the information with us!
L.D. and Lee,
I talked to a friend of mine who is going to be starting a post-doc at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, researching autistic kids. She had never heard of hyperlexia either, but she said it's very common for autistic children to become "savants" at one subject or another. Also, she says it's common for them to fixate on something, so repeating the movie phrases over and over fits that, which is what L.D. was saying.
Hyperlexia describes someone's ability to remember word phrases right? When my brother watches cartoon shows, he can remember the entire episode with almost every detail. No matter how many he watches, he never gets the episodes mixed up. Does this relate to the topic in any way?
Greg, you'll have to share more information about your brother, such as: was he able to read and write from an extremely early age (like 2 years old)? would he prefer to read books rather than talk to people? If your brother is autistic and displays some of these symptoms, it is possible that he has hyperlexia. If you read the article I posted the link to, you'll see that hyperlexics are extreme in their attachment to words. There are lots of people who are able to remember entire episodes of TV shows, but that doesn't mean they are hyperlexic!
my cousin has a type of autism called aspergers. he is 4 years old now, and is one of the brightest children i know. even though he seems quite normal, he actually is very sensative when is comes to physical contact and becoming close to someone.
Post a Comment