What is the difference between imitation and echolalia

This may be a way to indicate affirmation, calling, or a request. In this case, the child might actually want a drink. This form of echolalia is found to be a way to be involved in the conversation.

Also a way of communicating that the individual heard what the other person is saying. Immediate echolalia might lead to miscommunication. The child usually echoes the last thing said, but they may actually want to give another answer.

Children with autism may have great aural memories. This helps them recite the things they heard from memory. When a child repeats certain lines or phrases, or even large portions of scripts that are more complex than they can formulate, that usually indicates delayed echolalia. It might not always be suited to the situation, or even appropriate. A repeated sentence may actually be a significant memory or emotion.

As mentioned, echolalia in autistic individuals serves a couple of purposes. There are a couple of reasons as to why an autistic individual echoes phrases. Autistic individuals may find it enjoyable to repeat the words or sentences. This may provide them satisfaction. However, this may also lead to inappropriate interactions in daily life. Individuals with ASD may relate certain phrases or words with certain feelings. Echolalia may be non-functional for some children with ASD.

Non-functional echolalia means that the words and phrases are not used to mean anything. Non-functional echoing of real words may be confusing to parents and caregivers. Because although it seems like the child is using meaningful language, it may not be the case. A child may be able to memorize an entire script of a cartoon episode. But at the same time, they might have no understanding as to who the characters are or the meaning of the story. In this case, repeating the memorized sounds may have a calming effect on some of the autistic children.

There is also functional echolalia. In this case, a memorized phrase can be used in a meaningful way. This is using echolalia in a functional manner. The child really wants a drink, but is not using his own phrases. Memorized sentences and phrases may sound suited to the situation. They may seem correct. But that might not be the case.

But this answer may mean that they had a sandwich of some sort and remembered the ham sandwich from a TV show. Similarly, they may use the phrase functionally to express what they are thinking, but in the wrong context. There is no simple answer to this question.

Echolalia can be a hindrance in daily life. Support it! Encourage it! And at the same time, give him opportunities to communicate in a lot of different ways and see if you can find other modalities or methods that work better for him. Does he indicate any interest? What if you get out play food or pictures?

What if you lay out the device and just ask him what he wants? What if you make both? I hope that my message to you in encouraging and not demeaning. I imagine that your son is an amazing individual and he is lucky to have such a caring and engaged mom!!

Hi Alluka, Even I have similar issues with my 3. My daughter is 3. I thought I would just try changing her diet, so now we are gluten and dairy free. Do you know if this worked because she is autistic or does it also work for speech and language delays outside of the spectrum. Then she quickly says YES afterwards. It can get very frustrating. Have you come across this? Thank you in advance. Thank you so much for your kind words! Here are a few resources that may help you.

Frustration usually comes before change. My son is 33 months now. We are getting the speech therapy. We see and also the therapist says he has lot of vocabulary. He knows all his shapes, colours numbers alphabets. To start with he was so much interested in cars at 2 yrs but now he plays with everything. He name all family members. He responds to his name mostly but if too occupied does not.

But have realized he gets very confused with Yes and No questions. Repeats if given choices. Rest all motor skills no concerns. We are seeing a developmental neurologist just to get any diagnosis if any. My33 months old son with autism has speech which is largely echolalia. He however is still struggling with Yes and No questions. He also likes Mr Tumble and scripts it from Morning to Night.

This article just showed me it could me stimming. I had never thought of it as such. We are not currently working with any SLP.

I will appreciate some guidelines to help with his delayed echolalia and build more functional speech. Just to add, he knows a lot of things from alphabets to numbers ,animals and more. He knows the entire Mother Goose club Nursery Rhymes and he can read 2 to 7 letter words although i doubt he understands what he reads.

If He watches a tv program or listens to something he likes 2ce, He starts to script the entire thing in the right order. Hello there, my son is 26 months old and he start to repeat me sometimes. Not whole sentinces just the last word. But if i ask him do you want this or that he understand and says yes or no. But sometimes if i ask him a question i gusse that he does not understand and if i finish with a huh he says huh.

But if he needs something he will tell me or show me something. But he is learning new words. Out of no where he would tell me something with that new word. But he does repeat. But he knows what up means. If he wants to he picked up he would bribg up his arms and say mama up. If i ask him what color is the grass he will say green. He will respond correctly of he knows the answer. But he just chooses to repeat me some times the words he knows and does not. Is this normal or not.

Once in a while its 2 words. But mostly just the last word. I miss spelled couple of words up there i am sorry i was using my phone and the page keeps going up and down. What does it mean when your 13 year old only imitates one parent and did not do this when she was younger. She was just diagnosed with aspergers this year.

She does this intermittently but has been doing it more often lately. I am Turkish and my husband is Australian and we live in Istanbul. We have a daughter who is going to turn 4 tomorrow. My husband looked after my daughter approximately when she was between years old. My husband was working from home and so my daughter spent most of her time watching TV or youtube. We had a bit of isolated life and so she did not have any friends really. When my daughter was 3, I left work and started to teach her Turkish as much as possible.

At first, she was so lazy to repeat after me. She could not learn colors but she was making color coordinated shapes with legos very well. I forced her to speak and then she started learning things. Her Turkish was definitely much better than her English.

About 2 months ago, she had some rough times. She first started laughing without a reason and then she had seizures together with laughing. And she stopped talking totally. At first she was understanding what I said to her but it looks like that is gone now too. However, today she started repeating words and small sentences after me.

But it sounded more like echolalia. She repeated the questions totally. She cannot speak very clearly though after 2 months of total silence. Last weeks, I took her to a psychiatrist and neurologist. They say there is definitely regression and autistic behavior but it might be a result of epilepsy or brain tumor.

She is going to have an brain MR in 2 days. And suddenly today she started repeating words but they sound more like echolalia. Do you think it is possible for a almost 4 year old child to forget language because of not speaking for 2 months? If not, there is definitely some brain damage due to her seizures. The article is very informative.

Thank you. I have a 4 year old daycare child that repeats everything you say. If i say do you have to go potty? He says do you have to go potty? No matter the question he repeats the whole question and never gives any answer. So how i understand it i ask question and answer the question immediately. So like the cookie yes i want a cookie then give them the cookie and everytime do the same until i fade away my answer right??

Hi Carrie! Echolalia communicates! My son is 2 and a half years old and he still uses echolaia. In addition to his delayed speech, he was very clumsy. The clumsiness has greatly improved since the testing, but the echolaia still concerns me.

Alot of his speech is what he has heard before. What else can I do to help him speak more on his own? Do you think he should be tested again? Thank you for the information. My grandson is 5. I noticed the repeating language for at least two years. I watched him very close and in every other area seemed fine. Patient fun and engaging. Loves to go places. Hes was tested for Autism and he just does not check the boxes but for the echo speech. He says thing like Look the ball is under there.

He copies songs counting the alphabet but that is all memory work. We live close and me and my grandson are close. Can you tell me a book to buy to help me play with him so I can support his speech. I found so little. It is all on Autism.

I like to be informed so I can help Thank you. You can check this link for eBooks Carrie is currently selling to see if any would meet your needs. Hi, this was amazing!!! I have no idea what to do, any suggestions? My almost 3 years old daughter has some difficulty to speak in the first person. She can ask questions, ask for things, and talk in third person. She actually refers to herself mostly in third person but sometimes also second person basically repeating what we have told her.

So basically plural first person. Every now and then she repeats our question too. Are these signs of Echolalia? Other than this she could make meaningful sometimes multipart sentences. Any thoughts? My son aged 2. If he is happy , excited , cranky or crying eeeee is very common … not sure how can this be taken care? My 4 year old son repeats the question i ask. I feel that he has no logic to answer a question. Please help me to figure this out. Hi I have a son 2 and half year old.

He has been diagnosed with autism. Even in his sleep when he gets up he repeat this word. I really dnt knw what to do. Hi my son is 27 months and I believe he may have echolalia. He repeats everything back to me. He does form some sentences on his own.. My son 31mths old had hearing loss due to glue ear for aprox 8 or so months. Therefore, his speech and language development is delayed. Just now starting to put words together.

He echoes a lot of what we say rather then answering. My question is with his delay would you expect this echoing responses to be normal due to his language development being more like a 18mth old?

Is he just going through the normal development stages of language late or is it something I need to look further into? Thanks for your advice. Now he is preschool his teacher also mentioned that. So what should I do. What is it when a child begins repeating what I am saying as I am saying it? This is especially challenging in a testing situation. I am unsure if it is a comprehension strategy or an ingrained habit to give the pretense of paying attention.

Weaknesses of attention and focus are a significant issue along with learning abilities and an ASD diagnosis. He always calls himself as you instead of i for ex. Shall i force him to say the modified statement ex. I want to go there. Thank you so much for reaching out. If you are a parent, we suggest you reach out to a local speech-language pathologist who can work with your child directly and answer your question. If you are another speech-language professional, we have created a membership where we pay a full staff to answer questions like this on a regular basis.

We would be more than happy to answer your question inside the membership program. As a mother of a 3 yo and 3 m boy, I can relate to this article and some of the comments here. My son was diagnosed as mild asd when he was 1. The psychologist even said that he was cognitively border-lined.

He also was very Echolalic. That before anyone thought to check his hearing… As it appears, he had serious hearing problem due to liquid in his ears. When he was 2 we had a surgery and his hearing was normal again. Right there he changed, became much more sociable, happy boy, started talking very fast, and each day made great progress. All professionals now think not only he is normal boy, but even more progressive then most kids his age in most areas, including speech and language.

And cognitively. So dear moms, l understand the horrible times that you are going true, only we can understand that. Many of the Symptoms are the same! When he was 3 yo and 2 months all remaining Echolalia was gone…. He was tested for Austism about 2yrs ago and was found not to be Autistic. Can a child display immediate Echolalia and not be Austistic. I often spend a lot of time teasing out why a child is using echolalia, and one I struggle with is when, given a question and multiple choice answers, the child only repeats the final choice, even when they can point to the correct answer when the language is removed.

The child is on the spectrum but highly verbal…. What a great article. My DS is 3 born was born 2 mo this early. He has both immidiately and delayed echolalia. Always repeat question instead of given the right answer. However, he says no correctly for things he does not want… And say last words of the question of the things he Wants. He is very sociable and loves playing soccer.

I wondering if this a sign of autism or not. Can this sometimes happend with kiddos of speach and language delays?

Help please. Thank you so much for this very helpful article. It was so encouraging to read. My son is 2. We think he even knows how to read since he knows his letters and how to sound them out.

When we ask him if he wants something or if he has a request, he will point and use one word. Example: water, yes?

Or he will say water, sure. He has no problem communicating certain desires but what he does often is scripting. So we know he can put sentences together based off of what he repeats. He says everything so clearly. We did have an early intervention specialist come out and they ruled out autism. Out of the amazing suggestions you provided above, which ones would you say we should implement? Hi, thank you so much for this, my 2 year repeats Alphabets and numbers most of the time even when he is upset with few words here and there and limited communication with us and he grunts sometimes while he speaks although he understands everything we say e.

I try to repeat the right words to him and he repeats but not immediately. How can this be worked on as a parent? I will tell my child to not do something and he will repeat exactly what I say but will still do what I told them not to do right after….

Hi there friends, its wonderful paragraph about teachingand entirely defined, keep it up all the time. Example: Today he was playing and stopped to watch tv. Hi everyone!

Boy 32 months, sings a lot and quotes a lot from youtube when playing alone or when he has nothing to do, no other concerns. Can children also script without beeing on the spectrum?? Thank you for sharing this information on echolalia when children repeat what you say. It was useful and interesting. Sukaina, U. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

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