Mental Health
Understanding the phenomenon of early reading in autistic children.
Universite de Montreal
Image: Pixabay Representative image
“Couche-Tard”. When the parents of a young autistic child heard their child say the name of this commercial channel out loud while driving in the car, they couldn’t believe their ears. How could they imagine their four year old toddler could read this sign? He had never said a single word.
This case of hyperlexia – the early ability to decipher letters and groups of letters – inspired the work of Alexia Ostrolenk. “This is not an unknown phenomenon in science, but we are just starting to explore it,” explains the doctoral student in biomedical sciences from the University of Montreal.
According to the few serious studies on the question, the prevalence of hyperlexia – which can be defined as the ability to decode written words early – varies from 6 to 20% in autistic people. By “precocious” is meant before the age of five. But the proportion could be even greater. “We noted that this peculiarity is not always observed in the clinic, because parents and medical staff do not pay enough attention to it.”
Attracted to letters
Children who systematically go to the magnetic board in the playroom to manipulate the magnetic letters, this may be an indication of their fascination with writing. We have even seen young people learning a foreign written language by consulting a tablet. “There are reports of autistic children able to write subtitles for YouTube clips,” comments Alexia Ostrolenk.
As part of her thesis under the supervision of Professor Laurent Mottron, her objective is, in particular, to better understand the frequency of hyperlexia in autism. When does it appear? How and why? With the discoveries that her analyzes have enabled her to make, she would like to improve interventions with autistic children.
“We believed for a long time that it was a kind of obsession and certain clinicians had the reflex to suppress it. I believe that, on the contrary, it is a faculty that can be put to good use in the treatment of autism, given the very frequent difficulty these children have in establishing coherent communication with those around them. ”
But can we really say that these children can read? Do they understand the meaning of words? “It’s a difficult question, admits the doctoral student. We believe they are fascinated by the designs formed by letters in association with sounds. They are looking for patterns. It’s like a sort of audio and visual puzzle for them. “
Brain complexity
To successfully complete her doctoral studies, the researcher intends to perform clinical observations of 200 children.
About sixty subjects have already been recruited, but the pandemic has slightly delayed the process. It has developed with its director a detailed questionnaire in which parents are asked to specify their child’s interest in letters and words.
This questionnaire could be applied on a large scale (“that would be my wish,” she says), which would better detect hyperlexia in clinical assessments.
In a second part, she has been following a pair of hyperlexic twins for four years. They are now eight years old. This work is among the first to be carried out on a large scale.
Originally from France, where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in life sciences at Pierre et Marie Curie University ‒ Paris 6, Alexia Ostrolenk completed a master’s degree in brain and mind sciences in London in 2012.
Back in Paris, she undertook a second master’s degree, this time in cognitive neuroscience. “The brain,” she says, “has always fascinated me. Its complexity, its mysteries… ”
It was an internship at Leka, a young French company that manufactures a robot for autistic children, which led her to do tests in a specialized establishment.
She wanted to plunge into this strange world of “different intelligences”. In 2017, she began her doctorate.
In addition to her work in psychiatry, Alexia Ostrolenk enjoys communicating her science to non-specialist audiences. Last month, she obtained second place in the institutional competition of My thesis in 180 seconds .
You can see his presentation here .
Source: Universite de Montreal