Hyperlexia: a variant of aphasia or dyslexia

We report five patients with hyperlexia who presented for evaluation in the Learning Disabilities Clinic at the Medical College of Georgia over a two year period. Analysis of the data from the neurologic and neuropsychologic evaluations indicates that the primary and essential cognitive deficit in these children is a disorder in speech and language involving a severe deficit in their ability to comprehend language whether it be spoken or written, as opposed to a dyslexia syndrome involving only recognition and/or comprehension of written language. This finding is in contrast to the Nosology of Disorders of Higher Cerebral Function proposed by the Child Neurology Society which views hyperlexia as a variant of the language disorder subtype of dyslexia.