Well.. that was interesting...

[lithera]

I got over 70 posts on "I want popcorn." So freaky. So, in order to hopefully get none, I'm going to post soimething interesting and possibly thought provoking.

Iw as watching Dateline last night and they had a spot on this new things they've discovered in young children. They're calling it hyperlexia. It is pretty interesting stuff, they're linking it to autism.

What happens is these kids start reading at a really young age. They're reading larger words like 'passenger' and 'terminal' and 'vexing' by 3 and college level text books by ten. You'd think this was a good thing, except they learn language by learning what the symbols mean. Most people learn to speak before they learn to read, they learn language by watching others interact with each other. These kids learn to read, then writing and speaking come later. They don't learn how to communicate verbally and therefore don't know how to interact with others. They have to be taught how to speak to peers. It's is much easier for these kids to communicate with writing than with speech.

It was interesting for me, because the older I get, the more I think I have some wires crossed in my language centers. I have some problems that point towards dyslexia, but I'm not dyslexic. I also have days where I can't speak. On the really bad days, I can't write or type, either. I get about one of those a year and four or five of the days where I just can speak a year. I can use sign language sometimes. I have no idea what it is or what causes it. It is possibly the most frustrating thing I have ever expreienced. On those days I do my best to not be around people.

Anyway... I should get to work.

Comments

[inevitability.livejournal.com]

Heh. Welcome to my life. I'm not stupid, but to listen to me speak you'd think I was a moron.

And lets see if I can start another posting mania...


Does reading at an early age keep you from talking dirty in an effective way?

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

I don't get things that bad, but I do have (undoubtedly ADHD-linked) problems occasionally where something gets jammed and I can't get the words out. Sometimes it's just a problem where no matter how hard I try I can't find the word to express something but I can fudge by using a few dozen to try and explain around it - sometimes it's like I've completely forgotten how to speak, like the language centre of my brain has thrown a fuse and is no longer available to the rest of my brain. This becomes more common as I get older, but thankfully the episodes haven't been longer than ten minutes or so each yet.

Re:

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It feels a lot like that, except it happens with just about everything I try to say. Sometimes if I slow down my thoughts to thinking about one word at a time I can get out sentences, but it takes me an excrutiatingly long time to do so. It's faster to just write it down.

Mine normally last for hours and it seems like a whole day, though it probably isn't.

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

Except for the duration that sounds familiar. I normally have some difficulty communicating because my brain goes much faster than I am physically capable of speaking or writing; if I'm excited about something or I have a lot to say it builds up and I start getting really frustrated, and if I get interrupted or otherwise can't get it all out that can trigger an... well, an episode. I'm sure there's a word for the phenomenon, but I'll be damned if I can think of it.

Re:

[lithera.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I can't find a direct cause for mine. It's almost as if its a delayed effect from something like you've described. There hasn't ever been a direct causality like that for me.

I do understand the thinking faster than you can express. I often jump four or five thoughts before speaking again and sometimes lose people, because it seems random. I often times also lose thoughts because I can't get them out fast enough and they just disappear. I hate that.

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

Well, mine aren't all linked to a cause, but I do generally get that frustration feeling when one is coming on, since I also start to lose the ability to think in words (which I don't naturally do - curse my monkey brain!). And I do the logical leap all the time - while it helps me draw pop culture connexions and solve puzzles and learn how to use things and learn languages better than most, it also makes explaining how I did something hard, because I have to try to reconstruct the eight steps I just casually breezed past. And I lose thoughts all the time, especially when I'm talking to people. I can never fit all of what I want to say out in time, and my short-term memory is bad enough that I forget what I wanted to say pretty quickly.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That sounds entirely right. Wow. That's so cool. I'd only found one other person before who had said that they expereinced anything like this and par for the course, I can't remember who.

Yeah, I make connections and theories and I see how things work but it is always near impossible to explain to someone else how I see that they work. I'm also really good with patterns, especially if I let them sit on the level just below actual thought. (There being lots of levels words being the most concrete and where I normally think being even less conrete than pictures. More like impulses.)

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

What you said. Exactly. I think conceptually - when I look at a book I think of the idea of a book, and then have to look for a word that matches. When I'm actively learning a language this can be fun, since I have an excellent chance of coming up with livre or liber or something else instead of book; I have a nontrivial chance of doing so otherwise, but usually I get multiple options pretty quickly and can pick one.

Re:

[lithera.livejournal.com]

*nods* When I lived in Japan I was learning Japanese and French at the same time. I used to babble in this strange mix of the two. I still do it to some extent. When I can't think of a word in one language, I'll often substitute a word from another that comes to mind.

I've also noticed that even if I don't understand the exact words people are saying, I'll understand the context pretty well.

Hey, do you also get that sometimes you hear people speaking to you, but you don't actually hear the words, just sounds?

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

When I can't think of a word in one language, I'll often substitute a word from another that comes to mind.

Me, too. And often there are words in other languages that are more correct to express an idea. Often I won't know how I know this, but it impresses native speakers, so.

I've also noticed that even if I don't understand the exact words people are saying, I'll understand the context pretty well.

Same here. I know I'm empathic, but maybe I'm good at telepathically reading the idea that someone is trying to get across. Dunno.

Hey, do you also get that sometimes you hear people speaking to you, but you don't actually hear the words, just sounds?

Yes. The more I'm around people at any one time the harder it is to understand that the noise is language. The same thing affects my empathy/mindreading thing - the more I'm around people the more it's hard to not get overwhelmed by cacophany.

[gamethyme.livejournal.com]

I was reading at young 3 -- or, rather, that's when my mother knew I was reading, because I corrected her when she read to me.

And I'm not so good at the fine art of verbal communication.

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

I was reading the newspaper aloud to my grandfather at eighteen months, if my mother is to be believed. I was reading serious books at age five - I started with Firestarter. Except for the speech blocking events, and difficulty sticking to words in one language, though, I don't have (as far as I am aware) any major problems with verbal communication. Which means that, once again, I can't get neatly categorised and understand what's wrong with me. Sigh.

Re:

[lithera.livejournal.com]

That sounds familiar.

Its nice to know that someone else has somthing similar going on.

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

It is! I don't know if I've known anyone before who understood this sort of thing from personal experience. It takes a bit of a load off knowing that I'm not crazy. Or at least that I'm in good company.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

*grins*

Everyone's crazy. It's just a matter of how and how much.

[aetius.livejournal.com]

Indeed it is.

I was afraid I was alone in this, as well.

Re:

[lithera.livejournal.com]

You too? Wow.

Cool.

Re:

[lithera.livejournal.com]

*nods* It's really interesting stuff. I want to learn more if I can. I was reading at a young age, but not quite like this.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

There's someone who posts on alt.polyamory who's pretty sure about having hyperlexia, too. That person has a lot of trouble sometimes trying to figure out what other people are talking about, because of being very sure about what a given word means. (Like "hug" meant a specific level of hugging, and anything more than that would be called something different.) I could probably dig up some of the relevant posts on Google if you're interested.

Re:

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think I have hyperlexia. I think I have something else, I just have no idea what it is. *shrugs* Maybe its just a different way of thinking.

I would appreciate the information on hyperlexia as well, though. It intrests me.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I was crossing threads in my head (the hyperlexia one was from two years ago, sheesh), but this is the main post that I was thinking of earlier. It sounds both like and unlike what you describe, now that I read it again.

Sounds familiar

[seanb.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was reading by 3, programming by 6, and reading college textbooks by 10. I've picked up most of my vocabulary from reading, which still shows when I occasionally produce weird pronunciations when I try to use words in conversation. I've always had poor social skills, although I am more comfortable with the written word.

Was this report portraying hyperlexia as a Bad Thing, or was it just commenting on emerging trends in our society?

Re: Sounds familiar

[lithera.livejournal.com]

It didn't really portray it as a Bad Thing, only as a different thing that they've just now really started looking at. It does make the lives of these people difficult in ways that most people and certainly schools aren't prepared for.

[gehn.livejournal.com]

Hmm. How interesting. My only problem is that when talking about anything that interests me more than day-to-day fare, my brain goes so much faster than my mouth, and in different directions at once, and I stutter and lose what i'm trying to say.