Autistic/hyperlexic four year old

[Haworthia]

This time last year I applied to defer my (May born) son’s Reception start. At the time he was three and a half, quite severely speech delayed, and delayed in most other areas too. Thankfully, it was agreed that he could start Reception in 2020 instead of 2019.

Fast forward to around March this year. He’d not long been put on the waiting list for an ADOS assessment (we are still waiting, although there’s no doubt in my mind that he is autistic) when he started to read words when we were out and about. Walking through the supermarket he’d point at signage saying “meat”, “fish” etc. At first I wasn’t sure he was really reading, but it soon because apparent that he was. Now, six months later (he’s just coming up to four and a half) he can read all manner of things, although sometimes it’s obvious he’s just guessing at the word. He seems to read the whole word too (goodness knows how he’ll get on with phonics), and will sometimes get his vowel sounds wrong, like reading out “post” to rhyme with “cost”. I’m not sure whether his comprehension is always good, because like a lot of autistic young children he can struggle with who/how/why type questions.

Number wise, he can recognise numbers up to and beyond three digits. None of this has been encouraged or hothoused at home, he’s completely self taught.

Now I have this gut churning feeling that he’s going to hate school and be bored. It’s not that I’m regretting the deferral, because he is still quite ill-equipped in so many ways: socially, emotionally, behaviourally, not long toilet trained, can’t dress himself etc. He still struggles with language both in terms of interpreting questions asked of him and making himself understood (even now, I struggle to understand what he says so teachers would struggle more). Academically though, he’s on another level, and obviously will be even more so come next September. In other words, spiky profile/twice exceptional (which are terms I have only just come across and describe him to a T).

He’s already bored at preschool and I’m losing sleep at night worrying how he’ll manage at school. If I had to choose again whether to send him to school this year or next year I would still choose to defer, but looking longer term and from a purely intellectual level, I just don’t want him to be bored and under stimulated.

Does anyone have experience of this, and of liaising with schools? Next year the school SENCO will start to attend his One Plan meetings, so I’ll need to discuss his hyperlexia as being one of his special needs. I’m also wondering whether to reduce his preschool hours, as much as it would pain me to lessen my own child-free luxury time

He sounds exactly like my neighbours kid.
Right down to teaching himself to read while on the waiting list for speech and language!
He's 6 now and obsessed with lifts and the game show Tenanble.
He's ahead at school but not bored.
I think its helpful for his self esteem to be so effortlessly good at academics because he does struggle socially. It gives him some things in the school day which he can relax into and enjoy.
As I understand it, the advice is to keep gifted children around their emotional rather than intellectual peers. So you've done the right thing in deferring him. The teachers can differentiate if need be.
I'd give the school half a term to make their own observations and then ask for a meeting to discuss both his strengths and his special needs.
Be aware that, even with his clear intelligence, he might still run into academic difficulties.
My DS is waiting on an aspergers assessment. He once went an entire term without learning anything at all because he finds it difficult to concentrate in noisy environment.

Both my autistic children were hyperlexic.

Neither are gifted though, one is averagely academic, and the other is in a special school for ASD and moderate learning difficulties.

IME hyperlexia is fairly common in autistic children, and is just a "memory trick" - they have an amazing visual memory for words. I don't think it's a particularly good indication of intelligence or academic success.

My son taught himself to read and write when he was 2, when he was in preschool aged 3 he was building words like 'junior' out of lego and could read the newspaper aloud. He is a may born boy and his communication and emotional skills were extremely delayed. I considered deferring a year also, however, im so glad I didn't. He is already years ahead of his peers academically and is frustrated and bored with school. He is 10 now and In his final year of primary school. He has asd so emotionally and socially he will never be on a level with his year group anyway, even if he was in the year below, though I think he couldn't have coped being even further ahead academically.