Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Hyperlexia
/ˌhaɪpərˈlɛksiə/noun
A precocious ability to read words far ahead of one's age, with comprehension lagging well behind.
The Greek roots
ὑπέρ
hypér
over, beyond
λέξις
léxis
word, speech
Literally: “beyond words”
The story of the word
Named by Norman and Margaret Silberberg in 1967 for children who decoded print fluently at three or four but could not say what they had read. It is not the opposite of dyslexia in any useful sense, since the difficulty has moved rather than disappeared. Most cases turn up alongside autism, and the intense early attraction to letters and numbers is often the first thing a parent notices.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → medical coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1967
Same family
dyslexiaalexialexiconhyperbole
In a sentence
He read every road sign at three, which the paediatrician called hyperlexia.
Hyperlexia can mask a comprehension problem for years, because the reading sounds perfect.