When Tanya Paxton’s little girl started speaking at the age of two, her mother was thrilled.
Sienna weighed just over 2 pounds when she was born two and a half months premature and had hit her milestones – like turning and sitting up – slower than she should.
“Her first word was a pretty standard ‘hiya’ but from then on she quickly switched to full sentences and often repeated phrases from TV,” Tanya tells Metro.co.uk.
‘”Heaven, believe in better!” she repeated again and again after seeing the commercial on TV. At two and a half she was reading signposts and notices when we were out.”
British mother Tanya Paxton with her daughter Sienna, who taught herself to read at the age of two due to hyperlexia
When Sienna first read an exit sign, Tanya dismissed it as a one-off coincidence.
“Then she did it again. My two-year-old looked at me with her big brown eyes, pointed to a sign above an elevator, and read out loud, “Lift.”
The mother said people stopped her afterward and commented on how far ahead Sienna was. They wanted to know what Tanya had done to teach her daughter to read so early.
“But at home she looked at the same picture books that all toddlers have and did her ABCs,” she recalls.
Sienna was born two and a half months premature and hit her milestones – like rolling over and sitting up – slower than she should at first
“She certainly hasn’t learned adult words like ‘exit’, ‘elevator’, ‘toilets’ and ‘fire escape’.”
Sienna’s love of the language didn’t stop there. Within six months, her attention had turned to books — specifically, a personalized storybook called Princess Sienna and the Pony that Tanya’s father had bought for her.
“I was reading a story her grandfather bought for her one night before bed when she just took over. She was pretty much verbatim; I was so amazed that I pulled out my phone and started filming them.
“Her babysitter couldn’t get over it. She would give Sienna things like receipts, grocery lists, and grocery packages and watch in awe as my daughter read the words in front of her.
But in kindergarten, teachers had noticed some difficulties Sienna had when it came to socializing with other children, and she was sent to an educational psychologist at the age of four.
THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF AUTISM
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people with autism have problems with social, emotional, and communication skills that usually develop before the age of three and continue throughout a person’s life.
Specific signs of autism are:
- Responses to smell, taste, sight, touch, or sound are uncommon
- Difficulty adjusting to changes in routine
- Unable to repeat or repeat what they are told
- Difficulty expressing desires with words or movements
- Unable to talk about their own feelings or those of other people
- Difficulty with acts of affection, such as hugs
- Better to stay alone and avoid eye contact
- difficulties in dealing with other people
- Inability to point or look at objects when others are pointing at them
He diagnosed Sienna with autism and explained her amazing abilities as hyperlexia — a self-taught reading ability in children under the age of five that is often associated with autism.
About two in 10,000 children with “autism spectrum disorders” suffer from hyperlexia – which means children can often read fluently without understanding what they are saying.
It is a syndrome defined by a precocious, self-taught ability to read words before the age of five, or a fascination with logos, letters, numbers, maps, or patterns. Some children may experience both.
This comes along with a delay in oral language development and challenges once they start speaking. They also usually have difficulty interacting socially with adults and other children.
It is found in children with other conditions such as Asperger’s Syndrome, Tourette’s Syndrome and seizure disorders and is not recognized as a distinct condition.
Tanya has to watch what her daughter, now nine, overhears after catching her reading Bella Mackie’s How To Kill Your Family
Seven years after Sienna’s diagnosis, Tanya says her daughter’s interest in reading shows no signs of slowing.
“Sienna is now nine years old and a total bookworm and can read a young adult novel in a day.
“I have to be so careful because she’s going to pick up and read absolutely everything. I caught her the other day reading one of my books called How to Kill Your Family with a cheeky grin on her face!’
At school, the mother says, teachers gave Sienna books written for older children to keep her busy.
Although staff had been briefed about Sienna, the mother added: “When they actually saw her doing it, they were quite shocked […] She is also brilliant at spelling; Her teachers struggle to find words she doesn’t know. We joke that she’ll be awesome at pub quizzes when she grows up.
Additionally, Tanya says Sienna enjoys reading stories to her brother Grayson, two, and the mother says she’s grateful her daughter has a “healthy interest” when many of her peers are “addicted to her screens.”
Sebastian, pictured at the age of three, knows the entire periodic table of the elements by heart, while his father admits he couldn’t name ten of them
Earlier this year, five-year-old Sebastian Esposito’s parents began sharing his incredible reading skills online.
When the little boy, who was also diagnosed with hyperlexia, was 18 months old, he became obsessed with a wooden letter puzzle and began spelling words like cat and dog.
Six months later, his parents said he could write more than 200 words and had learned the entire Russian alphabet.
Now five and in kindergarten, where his classmates are still learning ABCs, Sebastian by 18 has a reading ability, memorizing the Greek, German, Armenian and Turkish alphabets and can recite the entire periodic table of the elements by heart – although he can’t but his shoelaces tie.
Proud father Ryan Esposito, 30, a miner who lives with his photographer Amanda, 33, their daughter from a previous relationship, Shyann, 14, and Sebastian, said: “All parents think their child is special. But I knew that Sebastian was really something special.
“When he started spelling words backwards, I thought maybe he was an alien. And he picked up all those words so quickly. It was amazing.
While his classmates are still learning their ABCs, Sebastian has a reading age of 18 and has memorized the Greek, German, Armenian and Turkish alphabets
“We think he has a photographic memory. Everything he sees, he just stores in his head and never forgets.”
When Sebastian’s family started posting videos of him online, they wanted to spread awareness about his condition, and they never expected the short clips to go viral – with some hitting nearly 20 million views.
The most popular TikToks he posts under the name @little.einstein often show him writing an entire alphabet or any font in Microsoft Word, as well as listing all the countries and capitals of the world from memory.
Ryan said: “He can list every single country in the world and their flag, their capitals and their location. He can recognize a country by its outline.
“To see him blossom like that is so brilliant. We don’t feel we deserve such a blessing.’
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