I was hyperlexic, and I always found it very bizarre when people said they had a voice in their heads while they were reading (subvocalization.) I think I read so much as a very small child that I was exposed to much more written than spoken language, and I never needed subvocalization (or left it behind at some point.) After learning a second language with very different pronunciation rules, I realized that I was not only subvocalizing in that language, but was also now subvocalizing while reading English.
It struck me when I was reading a book on the operations of the House of Commons, and I realized I was reading "clerk" as "clark." The word "clerk" is spelled identically and has exactly the same meaning in both American and British English, but I was distinguishing them because I was reading in a UK context.
I actually wrote about it yesterday; using a database metaphor, I think I turned the natural primary key of the visual appearance of words into a composite key that now included the sound in order to distinguish between the meanings of very similar Romance language words from their English counterparts. I had to read in an accent. I'm considering blaming how impossibly hard it was for me to pick up a second language on the disability of not previously subvocalizing.
I have a younger sister that was hyperlexic. At age 5 we discovered she'd taught herself how to read French literature (it looked interesting) and she'd taught herself how to play piano, and was surprisingly good... She was whisked away to special schools, and I've never gotten to know her. She's as distant as a stranger.
Interesting, but I wonder about the causation implied by your first sentence.
The article you link to seems to show a correlation, but surely a more likely explanation is that the same factors cause both early reading ability and autism.
I was hyperlexic, and I always found it very bizarre when people said they had a voice in their heads while they were reading (subvocalization.) I think I read so much as a very small child that I was exposed to much more written than spoken language, and I never needed subvocalization (or left it behind at some point.) After learning a second language with very different pronunciation rules, I realized that I was not only subvocalizing in that language, but was also now subvocalizing while reading English.
It struck me when I was reading a book on the operations of the House of Commons, and I realized I was reading "clerk" as "clark." The word "clerk" is spelled identically and has exactly the same meaning in both American and British English, but I was distinguishing them because I was reading in a UK context.
I actually wrote about it yesterday; using a database metaphor, I think I turned the natural primary key of the visual appearance of words into a composite key that now included the sound in order to distinguish between the meanings of very similar Romance language words from their English counterparts. I had to read in an accent. I'm considering blaming how impossibly hard it was for me to pick up a second language on the disability of not previously subvocalizing.