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

by Audra Jensen, Peter Steen Jensen (Foreword)

Audra Jensen' son began reading when he was only two years old. She shares her experiences - both the challenges and joys - of raising a child with autism and hyperlexia - an early and obsessive interest in the written word associated with social deficits and significant difficulty in understanding verbal language.The author stresses the importance of diagnosis of the condition for successful implementation of effective teaching strategies and encouragement of more typical childhood development. As well as useful advice, this guide provides a comprehensive reading curriculum specially designed for young, challenged children to help promote their reading ability.With practical suggestions on how to modify teaching and therapy programmes to suit a child's individual learning style, this practical guide will prove invaluable for parents of children with autism and hyperlexia.

Genres: Autistic Spectrum Disorder

194 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 8, 2005

Reviews

[Colette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a long time ago (17 years!!) and found it to be extremely helpful. I hope I can find my copy to lend out to others. The author gives specific strategies that worked well. Every child comes with his or her own unique profile, hopefully this book will give some direction to you and yours.

Please note, use of "high-functioning autism" is now outdated but usually applies to children who are able to function in a school/work/home without support.

[Brigid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't love it - definitely didn't love it - but didn't hate it, either. It wasn't really what I expected, though I'm not sure how to articulate what I was expecting. I found some parts more technical/clinical than necessary.

If I'd read this book earlier, when my son was younger and we realized he could read, I might have found it more helpful and put into practice more of the suggestions she gives. However, we're further along our path now (roughly the age her son was when she started writing the book) and he's responding well to the system we do have in place so I found a lot of it either pointless or just not my style. I understand WHY she made the suggestions she did and how it works for her family but quite a bit of it just wouldn't suit me or my family.

I do like that the author pointed out some things that are coming down the pipe for my son - such as reading to learn and the ability to make inferences - so I'll have to go back through and make some notes based on those things I thought were helpful, but overall I'm glad I got it from the library.

Though I wouldn't classify this as my favorite book, I can see where others might benefit from it and would definitely say that families who are living with autism, especially hyperlexia, give it a once-over. Others may find it more helpful than I did and it never hurts to have another example, even if you choose not to follow it or go back to it later.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book to help understand Hyperlexia (early reading combined with verbal language problems) and how it relates to autism. There is a lot of great advice abouthow to use the early reading skills as a teaching tool to help the child understand verbal language,play, and social skills.