Countdown!

The countdown to Christmas has begun - I love Christmas , its definitely the best time of the year, besides Deqlan's birthday!

Little Leaps have the kids learning all about Christmas these last two weeks of school and Deqlan is loving it! He learnt alot of new words and items this week - CHRISTMAS STOCKING , SANTA, TINSIL - although he can say Father Christmas, they have been saying Santa so its easier for the kids to say! He absolutely loves the tree, and decorations up at school and all the festive cheer of singing carols every morning in greetings. Ayline says he can hardly wait for this turn to come and match words and pictures and choose songs, all related to Christmas!

School breaks up next week Friday until ( i think) the 12th of Jan - Deqlan sure is going to miss Ayline and the rest of the Little Leaps crew - already trying to think of lots of ideas and activities to keep him busy!!!

The other countdown we are watching is that of the arrival of Kevin and Louise, from New Zealand! They arrive next week Saturday, and we are so excited to see them - they left South Africa a year and a half ago and this will be their first visit home!!! I know they are going to be blown away at the huge difference and progress Deqlan has made and to see how grown up Logan has become!!

Speaking of Logan, its her birthday on the 7th of this month and we look forward to a weekend full of celebrations next weekend when we get her again! Poor thing, knocked her head while playing with the ball outside on Monday afternoon and had to get stitches!!

We have also opened a new window the past few days on a topic called Hyperlexia. Description as follows:

Hyperlexic children are characterized by having average or above average IQs and word-reading ability well above what would be expected given their ages and IQs.[1] First named and scientifically described in 1967,[2] it can be viewed as a superability in which word recognition ability goes far above expected levels of skill.[3] Some hyperlexics, however, have trouble understanding speech.[3] Most or perhaps all children with hyperlexia lie on the autism spectrum.[3] Between 5-10% of autistic children have been estimated to be hyperlexic.[4]
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 fMRI study of a single child showed that hyperlexia may be the neurological opposite of dyslexia.[5] 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.[6]

Hyperlexia is a syndrome observed in children who have the following characteristics:
- A precocious ability to read words, far above what would be expected at their chronological age or an intense fascination with letters or numbers. This is normally how hyperlexia is described. Precocious is quite a word defined as "early development or maturity".
- Difficilty in understanding verbal language
- Difficulty in socializing and interacting with other people
Hyperlexics may exhibit the following behaviour/characteristics:
- Learn expressive language in a peculiar way, memorize the sentence structure without understanding the real meaning (echolalia) and reverse pronouns.
- Conversation is rarely initiated
- A need to keep routines, which at times proves to be difficult to break them
- Auditory, olfactory and / or tactile sensitivity
- Self-stimulatory behavior
- unusual fears
- Normal development until 18-24 months, then regression
- strong visual memory (auditory as well)
- Difficulty answering "W" questions, such as "what," "where," "who," and "why"
- Think in concrete and literal terms, difficulty with abstract concepts
- Selective hearing
Hyperlexia is defined as follows
Hyperlexia has characteristics similar to autism, ADD, ADHD, language disorder, emotional disorder, hearing impairment, giftedness or, paradoxically, mental retardation.
It is important to "diagnose" hyperlexia and use its characteristics to server as tools for teaching. A Speech and language pathologist who is familiar with the conditon of hyperlexia is a crucial first step. Hearing, neurological, psychiatric, blood chemistry and genetic evaluations can be performed to rule out other disorders but are not needed to identify hyperlexia



I know its alot to take in, but it does sound an awful lot like our precious Deqlan - his love of letters and numbers and reading and writing has a name - its not just ' HIS THING' it actually has a name!!!! Its not all bad and some of the flags are very similar to that of Autism, except for the very early reading ability. There are some very very positive notes - alot of kids with Autism are not verbal, alot of kids with autism battle with reading, writing, spelling , numbers - so we are already so blessed Deqlan CAN DO THESE THINGS AND WELL!!! We now need to concentrate on the areas he needs help with, social interaction being a very very important one! We need to use his strengths to teach him the other things !!!


We are meeting with Little Leaps on Monday to discuss this , as this is going to change the way Deqlan is going to be taught! I have also been very fortunate to chat with another mommy his son has Aspergers and Hyperlexia and she has given me so many ideas to try with Deqlan.

We will of course formally need to get this assessed, so as to ensure we are providing Deqlan with the right tools to learn in the right way! As we learn and are guided, will share with you all to!

Thank you for your continued prayers for Deqaln to remain NED and for him to reach his full potential!

There are alot of kids in a very tough fight against neuroblastoma and other cancers at the moment, special prayers needed right now for JED, CONNOR, NICK, YLARIA, EVAN

Hope you all well, have a great weekend, God Bless and love
Mark Samm Deqlan Logan
REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS AND AGAIN I SAY REJOICE