Hyperlexia

I discovered within the past few days that, without being taught at all, Fox knows all the letters in the alphabet. If I point to a letter on a sign, etc. he immediately says the letter name (not always completely clearly, but clear enough to know that he knows what it is). I think this is rather amazing considering he's just 2 years old and nobody has ever worked with him on them or told him their names before... I have no idea how he knows them, he just does. Thinking this was kind of odd, I spoke to one of his therapists who brought up hyperlexia.

From wikipedia.com:
Hyperlexia was initially identified by Silberg and Silberg (1967), who defined it as the precocious ability to read words without prior training in learning to read typically before the age of 5. They indicated that children with hyperlexia have a significantly higher word decoding ability than their reading comprehension levels.
Hyperlexic children are characterized by having average or above average IQs and word-reading ability well above what would be expected given their age. First named and scientifically described in 1967, it can be viewed as a superability in which word recognition ability goes far above expected levels of skill. Some hyperlexics, however, have trouble understanding speech. Some experts believe that most or perhaps all children with hyperlexia lie on the autism spectrum. However, some other experts believe the involvement of autism in hyperlexia is completely dependent on the type of hyperlexia.
Hyperlexic children are often fascinated by letters or numbers. They are extremely good at decoding language and thus often become very early readers. Some hyperlexic children learn to spell long words (such as elephant) before they are two years old and learn to read whole sentences before they turn three. An MRI study of a single child showed that hyperlexia may be the neurological opposite of dyslexia. Whereas dyslexic children usually have poor word decoding abilities but average or above average reading comprehension skills, hyperlexic children excel at word decoding but often have poor reading comprehension abilities.
Despite hyperlexic children's precocious reading ability, they may struggle to communicate. Often, hyperlexic children will have a precocious ability to read but will learn to speak only by rote and heavy repetition, and may also have difficulty learning the rules of language from examples or from trial and error, which may result in social problems. Their language may develop using echolalia, often repeating words and sentences. Often, the child has a large vocabulary and can identify many objects and pictures, but cannot put their language skills to good use. Spontaneous language is lacking and their pragmatic speech is delayed. Hyperlexic children often struggle with Who? What? Where? Why? and How? questions. Between the ages of 4 and 5 years old, many children make great strides in communicating.
The social skills of a child with hyperlexia often lag tremendously. Hyperlexic children often have far less interest in playing with other children than their peers.

All of this describes Fox perfectly. He has a great memory and knows a lot, even more than most children his age, but it's almost impossible for him to communicate by speaking. I'm happy to possibly have some more answers or at least ideas of what is going on with him because the more I know the more I'm able to help. And so hyperlexia is added to the list of words I never knew before precious baby Fox came into my life. Off to research!

xo Betsy