Hyperlexia, Handwriting Pain, and Finding Freedom in a Word Document – Typing vs. Handwriting: An Autistic Perspective on Fine Motor Skills and Working Memory #MyAutisticTruth

Something that has always been part of my unique Autistic and ADHD identity is that, for me, communication by reading and/or typing allows me to communicate with accuracy and depth that I’ve never been able to replicate with face-to-face mouth speak.

This is just my experience as ONE Autistic person.

While there are probably Autistic people who may relate and have similar experiences to mine (finding text, writing, and typed words easier to share and digest), not every Autistic person will experience or relate to this.

This is partly because we all (Autistic or not) have unique combinations of neurotypes, which can influence our communication needs and strategies, and partly because we all have unique life experiences that can shape the opportunities we have and what we learn about ourselves and the world around us as we grow up.

For example, my spouse, David (who is also Autistic, ADHD, and Dyslexic), does not have the same ease with reading and writing as I do. David does, however, have much better access to 3D spatial awareness than I do, and, unlike me, David doesn’t seem to struggle nearly as much with hand-eye-coordination. We also have very different skills, weaknesses, sensory profiles, and sensory needs.

One of the layers that impacts my strength in reading is that, in addition to being Autistic and ADHD, I am also Hyperlexic, which for me meant words and reading were my very first Autistic obsession, and I taught myself to read (thanks to adults encouraging my love of reading by reading to me, and providing me with books on tape and a tape player that I could use to read the same books to myself on re-peat until I had them memorized).

Learning to read in this way meant I didn’t learn to read phonetically.

From what I can remember, I also didn’t start out by learning my letters before learning to read.

I learned each word as a picture, following along, counting with the words as the voices on my tape recorder read them to me, memorizing what each word looked like through repetition (which often meant confusing things like ‘god’ and ‘dog,’ which were visually similar).

I also struggled a lot with spelling in school, and as I grew older, it became hard for me to spot errors in text (that my brain automatically corrects).

As I’ve grown up, my brain still sees words as pictures, but reading and typing have become so natural to me that I can read faster than most people I know… except I STILL can’t spot a typo to save my life (but lucky for me there are readily available technologies these days that underline things for me in red when I get them wrong).

Not handwriting… typing, very specifically.

Writing by hand with a pencil or pen doesn’t work for me (for a few reasons), mainly because of my personal struggles with fine motor control and working memory.

One problem I have with writing by hand is that I have always struggled to write neatly, so if I want to write legibly, I must do so very slowly.

Also, writing by hand is something that has always caused me physical pain, even in elementary school (but this pain has only increased as I’ve grown older, and I am now close to 40).

Another problem I have with writing by hand is that working memory, holding short-term details in my mind, is sometimes hard for me (something that clashes with slow handwriting and zippy thoughts).

When my thoughts come out of my brain faster than I can write them down, I sometimes forget what I am trying to write before I can physically complete the act of writing.

In school or at work, trying to listen to my teachers or boss while taking handwritten notes on what they were teaching or expecting of me was nearly impossible unless they were willing to go slow (which people often weren’t).

If I hand-write as fast as I can, I can sometimes get a note out without forgetting what I want to write before I can write it, but when I want to go back and read what I have written, I often struggle to decode my own notes (because they’re so messy).

Plus, I often struggle to read handwritten notes in general, since they don’t look like the pictures of words from typed text that I memorized growing up. I have to work to sort them out, instead of instantly seeing and knowing what they are, as I can with typed text.

Even when I had thoughts to share, often when I spoke, the thoughts coming out of my mouth were so disorganized that people around me struggled to follow what I was trying to explain them.

Before I could type, I struggled to organize myself and express what I knew to the world, but once I learned to type, it felt like a whole new version of me was unleashed.

Learning to type opened up a world of communication to me.

It all started in elementary school with a typewriter that was probably 15-20 years old (maybe older), not as an accommodation for me, but for my teacher, who was frustrated by being unable to read my handwritten papers and homework.

My ‘final drafts’ were not ‘final’ enough, and after many of the ‘final’ papers I turned in were rejected (with a demand for rewrites) for ‘not being written neatly enough,’ it was eventually required that I ‘turn in all final papers typed’ (so my teacher could read them).

Learning to type on that old typewriter had both upsides and downsides.

On the one hand, the old metal keys, bells, and the smell of ink on paper were all very stimmy and enjoyable to me.

I LOVED the sounds that the machine made as I typed on it. Had I been able to use the typewriter more for play than for work, I might have enjoyed it more.

I don’t know what happened to that old machine, but I often wish I still had it, or one similar. However, the longing I have doesn’t, for me, justify the price of acquiring one (especially since there’s no need to waste paper with my current laptop setup).

The rest of this story is available on Substack for ‘Super Helpers‘.