"Hyperlexia" has been thrown around a bit, but he's able to define words quite well, so I don't think that's exactly right. He did really well on a test of identifying opposites of words, for example.
A hyperlexic may be able to identify meanings of individual words, but then they don't process those into an overall meaning.
Well, maybe that's right, then. He's been reading since he was three, and he can read difficult books aloud with very good expression. He's not great at explaining them, but he does fine with comprehension tests that ask questions that are no so open-ended.
We had a neuropsych test done, and the advice pretty much boiled down to "no diagnosis, but something is not quite right with this kid."
How long ago was that? We found that the accuracy of neuropsych evaluations improves as a child goes through the elementary years, and it can take more than one eval to get closer to the truth of what's going on.
What tests did that neuropsych eval include? And what did they find?
The evaluation was in August, just before he started kindergarten. Tests were:
WPPSI-III: VIQ 116, PIQ 121, PSQ 100, FSIQ 119
CTOPP-2: mostly 13's (one 12), Standard score in Rapid Naming 116
Beery VMI: VMI 113, VP 107
WIAT-III: Early Reading Skills 121/133, Alphabet Writing Fluency 80, Numerical Operations 110
She gave him WIAT Word Reading, but couldn't calculate a score given his age. (The computer apparently won't let you fill in some parts when the child is so young.) Test was discontinued when he refused to go on, instead of getting four consecutive zeroes, but he got pretty far into it.
It appears to me that the problem is with retelling, not with comprehension. The neuropsych report says, "Further, although he displays some characteristics of hyperlexia (precocious early reading ability without formal training; "word calling" generally with poor comprehension), his parents and teachers reported that his reading comprehension is quite good. Tests of verbal ability also showed good general verbal comprehension skills."
I don't have a copy of the school testing to be able to tell you which tests they gave him and how he scored on those. I remember that the SLP tests were all over the place, from a 130 on a test of antonyms to a 6th percentile on paragraph comprehension. Based on parent and teacher questionnaires, he was found to be entitled to services for social/emotional behaviors. He flies off the handle at the least thing, and doesn't seem to have strategies beyond screaming for dealing with the world not going his way. The school psychologist wasn't at the meeting in December (he was sick), but we got the report he compiled. Reading it after the meeting, it also says that the test is not diagnostic for autism, but that he scored moderately high on autistic traits. I want to talk to him about that and about whether he should get an ADOS or something.
I expect that we'll wait a couple of years before doing another neuropsych evaluation, but I think it's likely that we will want another one.
