J Autism Dev Disord
DOI 10.1007/s10803-013-1857-0
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
What are the Mechanisms Behind Exceptional Word
Reading Ability in Hyperlexia?: Evidence from a 4-Year-Old
Hyperlexic Boy’s Invented Spellings
Cláudia Cardoso-Martins · Daniela Teixeira Gonçalves ·
Caroline Greiner de Magalhães
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Hyperlexia is a condition characterized by word reading
skills that are far ahead comprehension ability. Many
children with hyperlexia have an autism spectrum disorder
(ASD). They usually learn to read at an early age, before
they receive any formal instruction, and they often show an
obsessive interest in reading. Indeed, the many hours hy-
perlexic children spend reading probably contribute to their
exceptionally high level of word reading ability (Nation
1999).
An interesting question concerns the mechanisms
behind hyperlexics’ exceptional word reading ability.
There is evidence that, similar to what has been observed
among typically developing (TD) children, word reading
ability in hyperlexia is closely associated with the ability to
read by phonological recoding (e.g., Cardoso-Martins and
da Silva 2010; Frith and Snowling 1983; Newman et al.
2007; Saldana et al. 2009). However, most of this evidence
is based on studies of school-aged hyperlexic children.
Evidence for young, preschool children with hyperlexia is
less clear. For example, although some studies have shown
that preschool-aged children with hyperlexia can read
pseudowords (e.g., Cardoso-Martins and da Silva, Study 2;
and Newman et al. 2007), it is not evident that they do so
by phonological recoding letters into their corresponding
sounds and then assembling the sounds to derive the pro-
nunciation of the words. For example, although the two
4-year-old hyperlexics who participated in Cardoso-Mar-
tins and da Silva’s study read as many pronounceable
C. Cardoso-Martins (&) · D. T. Gonçalves ·
C. G. de Magalhães
Departamento de Psicologia, Universidade Federal de Minas
Gerais, Av. Antonio Carlos, 6627, Pampulha, Belo Horizonte,
MG, Brazil
e-mail: cardosomartins.c@gmail.com
non-words correctly as a group of older TD children mat-
ched for word reading ability, they did not get a single
response correct in a very simple phoneme awareness task
in which they had to identify which of three different words
(e.g., xerife ‘sheriff’—cebola ‘onion’—telhado ‘roof’)
started with a phoneme enunciated by the examiner (e.g.,
/ʃ/). They also could not spell letter sounds presented
individually, suggesting that young, hyperlexic children
possess poor phonemic and grapheme-phoneme skills and
may thus read non-words by relying on lexical analogy
(see, e.g., Glosser et al. 1997). It is nonetheless possible
that the hyperlexic children in Cardoso-Martins and da
Silva’s study had difficulty understanding the instructions
of the tasks, particularly those of the phoneme awareness
task. Indeed, they were both reported to score below the
2-year-level in a Portuguese adaptation of the Peabody
Picture Vocabulary Test-III (Dunn and Dunn 1981) and
way below the level of the TD controls.
In addition to several reading and reading-related tasks,
one of the hyperlexic boys (HB) in Cardoso-Martins and da
Silva’s (2010) study was administered a word spelling test
(see below). In the present report, we describe his perfor-
mance on this task. We were particularly interested in
investigating the nature of his invented spelling errors as a
means of getting information about his sub-lexical pho-
nological skills. As Mann and her colleagues have argued
(e.g., Mann et al. 1987), young children’s invented spell-
ings provide compelling evidence of their ability to identify
and segment speech sounds, as well as of their knowledge
of grapheme-phoneme correspondences.
The hyperlexic boy was recruited through an outpatient
mental health center in a large Brazilian city, among
children with the diagnosis of ASD. At the time of his
evaluation, he showed the characteristic features associated
123

with ASD: he was echolalic, and had extreme language and
communicative impairments. He also showed compulsive
reading of letters and words. In the present report, we
compared his spelling skills with those of eight TD boys
(Mean age = 78.63 months; SD = 2.62) who were par-
ticipating in a longitudinal study investigating the
development of reading and spelling development in Bra-
zilian Portuguese, and who showed similar word reading
ability as HB. They were enrolled in 1st grade classrooms
and, according to their teachers, seemed to be developing
typically for their ages.
Participants’ word reading and spelling ability was
assessed with the Test of Academic Performance (Stein
1994). The reading subtest comprises 70 words printed in
lower case letters in a card, in order of increasing difficulty
(e.g., pato ‘duck’, fita ‘ribbon’, guitarra ‘electric guitar’,
hospedaria ‘inn’, etc.). Children are asked to read aloud the
words at their own pace. Thirty-five words (e.g., ver ‘to
see’, desconhecido ‘unknown’, industrialização ‘industri-
alization’, preguiça ‘laziness’) are included in the spelling
test. The words are dictated in order of increasing diffi-
culty, and the test is discontinued after 10 incorrect
responses in a row (or after its completion). Reliability
(alpha) is reported to be .86 and .89 for the reading and
spelling subtests, respectively. Children were tested indi-
vidually, at a quiet place. The hyperlexic child was tested
at the mental health center and controls at their schools.
Table 1 lists the number of correct responses presented
by the hyperlexic child on the reading and spelling sub-
tests, along with the mean and range of correct responses
for controls. As evident from this table, the HB’s score on
the spelling test was similar to those of the control group,
suggesting that spelling ability is strongly related to read-
ing ability in hyperlexia. More important for our present
purpose, his spellings errors were also similar to those of
the TD controls.
Following Ehri’s (2005) description of the development
of the ability to read and spell words, incorrect spellings
were classified as pre-alphabetic, partial alphabetic or
complete alphabetic. Pre-alphabetic spellings contained as
many or more errors (i.e., letter substitutions, deletions or
additions) as conventional or phonologically appropriate
letters (e.g., the spelling CORCO for comercializar). In
Table 1 Scores and mean scores on the word reading and spelling
tests for the hyperlexic child and the control children
Measures Group
Hyperlexic (N = 1) Typical children (N = 8)
Score Mean (SD) Range
Reading words 41 41.87 (2.29) 38–44
Spelling words 16 12.5 (3.38) 6–18
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J Autism Dev Disord
contrast, partial alphabetic spellings had fewer errors than
conventional or phonologically appropriate letters (e.g.,
CONÇOLAR for consolado; BALNSO for balanço; AG-
UIZA for ajuizar). Finally, complete alphabetic spellings
represented all phonemes in the pronunciation of the target
word with a phonologically appropriate letter, albeit not
always the conventional one (e.g., DESCONHESIDO for
desconhecido; VARONIU for varonil; FORTIFICASÃO
for fortificação). A letter was considered phonologically
appropriate if it is used to represent the target phoneme in
other words in Portuguese, albeit in other contexts. (A list
of the phoneme-grapheme correspondences that were
considered phonologically appropriate is available from the
first author.)
Similar to most controls, all of the hyperlexic child’s
incorrect spellings were classified as either partial or
complete alphabetic. As illustrated in Fig. 1, however, HB
did produce a relatively large proportion of partial alpha-
betic spellings and a relatively small proportion of
complete alphabetic spellings, suggesting that young hy-
perlexic children may find it more difficult to identify and
segment sounds in the pronunciation of words than TD
children of similar word reading ability.
Many of the words in the spelling test are relatively
infrequent and long (e.g., legitimidade ‘legitimacy’, forti-
ficação ‘fortification’, industrialização ‘industrialization’,
etc.). Very likely, these characteristics overtax young
children’s limited self-regulatory skills, interfering nega-
tively with their ability to attend to and retain the sequence
of sounds in working memory as they attempt to spell
words. As a matter of fact, partial alphabetic errors were far
more frequent for relatively long words, that is, words
comprised of seven or more phonemes, than for words with
Fig. 1 Proportion of various spelling errors for the hyperlexic child
and the control children
J Autism Dev Disord
fewer than six phonemes. In contrast, most of the errors for
the relatively short words were complete alphabetic. This
was as true of HB as of the typically developing children.
Recent research has shown that self-regulatory skills,
including executive attention, working memory, and
inhibitory control, are important correlates of literacy skills
in both elementary school- and preschool-aged children
(see, e.g., McClelland et al. 2007). There is also evidence
that self-regulatory skills develop substantially during the
preschool years (McClelland et al. 2007). Given that HB
was only 3 years and 11 months, and many months younger
than the typically developing children, it is not surprising
that he produced a relatively large incidence of partial
alphabetic spellings. Furthermore, as mentioned previ-
ously, HB had ASD, a condition often associated with
deficits in executive functions (Frith 2008).
Despite these differences, the phonological nature of
HB’s spelling errors leaves little doubt about his ability to
identify and segment sounds in the pronunciation of words.
Likewise, his spelling errors strongly suggest that he was
aware of grapho-phonemic correspondences and used this
knowledge to learn to read by processing and remembering
letter-sound relations in words, just like typically devel-
oping children do. Together with his compulsive interest in
reading, these abilities were very likely the driving force
behind his exceptional word reading ability.
As far as we are aware, few studies (e.g., Glosser et al.
1997; Newman et al. 2007) have investigated spelling skills
in hyperlexia. We hope that future studies will include
spelling tests as part of their evaluation of hyperlexics’
literacy skills. As the present findings illustrate, an analysis
of these children’s spelling errors can provide invaluable
information about the mechanisms driving word reading
ability and orthographic knowledge in hyperlexia.
Acknowledgments This report is based on the results of research
projects supported by Grants from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa
do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG) and Conselho Nacional de
Desenvolvimento Cientı́fico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Brazil. We thank
the children and their families and teachers for their cooperation.
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