Toddler with hyperlexia and speech delay, did your child seem gifted?

[MummytoJE]

I was wondering if anyone had a toddler with hyperlexia (specifically type 3) and turned out to be gifted.

Our son has a pretty significant speech delay at 28 months but a very advanced comprehension. Speech therapist said not ASD signs in the assessment, and we are pretty sure he has hyperlexia.

Whilst he is not obsessed or fascinated with letters, he is very good at them. He does the following:

-Can say every letter of the alphabet randomly when shown (or in order)
-Can identify images (that he hasnt seen before) based on a letter, so say we say Q he says q then finds a picture say of a queen
-Can come up with a word based on a letter, at random eg if we say 'e is for' he will say eeh for egg or eee for elephant or p is for 'pizza' - not based on any rhyme or song or anything, just random words that he knows (he says the words that way because of suspected phonological delay and/or CAS)
-can fit a letter into any corresponding letter shape on a board
-knows letters just from a faint or non obvious outline

Has anyone had experience of this at all with their child?
Many thanks

I'm sorry @MummytoJE but as a career long teacher of severely autistic children, I do ask you not to use the 'superpower' 'changing the world' stuff too liberally. Yes there are some spectacular gifted autistic people in the world, but sadly, for most, their quality of life, and often their parents quality of life, is very poor. And every time someone comes out with the super power stuff, as one parent said to me "it's like twisting a knife in my guts".

Of course it's important to be positive about your own child, but please consider those who struggle hugely. I know several parents who've had breakdowns due to what they have to deal with 24/7 and their pain and worry for their child.

I didn't mean intellect, I understand how it could have been read that way. Yes I hope so too!

If they had the sufficient support, funding, resource, less stigma, more accessibility across the board I wonder if it would still be the case. I'm not saying gifted or intellect or intelligence, I'm saying the way the world could change to adapt to them. Instead of seeing them as lacking or burdensome. As I said before, I didn't say easy. I'm just going to delete because honestly these consistently negative views of children with autism is just sad.

Autistic kids can also be gifted. Some have very high IQs.

I know this is an old thread but yes, my son could read and write at 2, he taught himself and obsessively wrote over my walls and on any space he could find at that time but his speech was very slow to come in until around age 4 when it just exploded and his use of advanced vocabulary was astounding. He has a very high IQ and has been accepted (after testing) into programmes for gifted children. He got top grades in GCSE with no studying. He is autistic and for his gifts he also has deficits, he is terrible socially, struggles to cross roads, cannot tie his shoelaces so now all is Velcro. His organisation skills are terrible He is 16. We are working on his independence with a view to University. I worry about him as I feel he is vulnerable. I have a less gifted child with numerous SN and I don't worry about her as much, she is 10.

I had hyperlexia and was then considered gifted all through school, but actually I was autistic. (No speech delay but also didn’t actually have the advanced speech I was initially thought to have, repeating phrases from
radio4 was echolalia/stim instead).

My DS is 3y3m and taught himself to read at around 3. He knew numbers to 100 and the alphabet well before 2. At 1, he had an insatiable appetite for books, and wanted me to read to him, over and over and over again, for hours.

His speech seems behind to me, although it is progressing, and he isn't as echolalic as he used to be. I suspect he has additional needs, and I know hyperlexia can overlap with ASD.

He starts Reception next year, and I worry that whichever school we get won't notice his uneven development. He goes to nursery, and staff haven't raised any concerns so far. They say he communicates with them and the other children, plays with other children, and joins in. They seem mostly impressed by his reading.

I'm wondering whether we should try to get him assessed now, and if so, how? What would the benefits be at this stage?