When Babies Read: A Practical Guide to Helping Young Children with Hyperlexia, Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism

Excellent

I found so much answers to this book and lots of ideas to enhance my son's abilities and reading skills. A must read! I am definitely recommending it!

I am an SLP, and yet would also highly recommend this book for parents and teachers. Few resources exist to facilitate a child with hyperlexia's ability to comprehend what is decoded. Thankfully, this book is worth its sticker price. When Babies Read provides a wealth of ideas that are practical and well-explained. The author provides visual supports so that it's easy to understand what she means. Be warned, there is naturally a lot of prep in order to complete these activities with a client, child or student. And yet, based upon my own professional experience, the activities are effective.

My son is hyperlexic as well as on the spectrum. I was hoping this book would shed light on how I could vary our ABA intervention to fit a very visual child who has difficulty in reading comprehension but is able to decode words beyond peers his age. I was disappointed that it didn't address fundamental of reading comprehension, which is one of the key disabilities of hyperlexic.All author talked about is 'writing it down' because the child is visual learner and to leverage on their strength and obsession in word deciphering.The book didn't address reading comprehension. Example. I found that hyperlexic children have difficulty understanding pronouns. Story books have passages that are filled with pronouns. The author didn't mention the methodology she employed to help strengthen her son's reading comprehension.It looks to me like the moment she writes the instructions down, all problems solved. The child could immediately pick up the meaning of the written words/sentence.Unfortunately it is not that straight forward.Example, A simple para such as this - "Mary is a 5 year old girl. She loves to play with her doll. It was a gift from her granny'"; A young hyperlexic reader would be lost!! She would not be able to infer 'She' and 'It' to the subjects in order to fully comprehend the big picture.There is large section on phonics and teaching babies to read (I am not sure about other hyperlexic children, mine has little difficulty decoding words and mastering phonics) but a tiny little section on comprehension and teaching pronouns. The book is great for those who need to know at a surface level. Or perhaps my expectation is too high.Regardless, i commend the author for her efforts.

Very interesting book, helpful for those of us with hyperlexic children. There isn't much information out there for parents like us and this book is written from the perspective of someone who totally gets it. A good read!