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Can we talk about Echolalia?


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I have a few thoughts about echolalia that have been bouncing around in my brain and I thought you guys might be able to talk about it with me.

 

For some background, dd7 was diagnosed with ASD when she was three, largely because of her echolalia. She has some social and sensory stuff too, but her language was very unusual. She had a lot of the classic echolalia symptoms. I would say things like, "would you like a sandwich" and she would respond, "would you like a sandwich" as an afirmative. There was a time I wasn't sure that she would ever be able to answer simple yes and no type questions. After a while, though, she began to use the echolalia in awesome ways. She would change a word from a sentence she had heard in one of her favorite movies and it would make sense for her situation ("would you like a cookie" when asking for a cookie in direct response to my sandwich question). It was quite obvious where it was coming from, but she was starting to make it her own. Over time, she did this enough that it turned into almost normal speech. Still, at 7, I can occasionally see exactly where she got a turn of phrase from or something of the sort. I am amazingly impressed by this whole process for her. It was a brilliant way to learn language, if very unusual. 

 

As a result, her vocabulary is very large and her syntax is incredibly advanced. Her comprehension is pretty normal, if a little behind, and her language is still "quirky."

 

So I guess my first thought is, has anyone seen this type of transition from fairly severe echolalia to "normal" speech? I don't hear about it much, so I'd like to read some stories.

 

My next thought is about how this has affected her writing/story-telling abilities. DD7 loves to spend all day drawing pictures for stories in her head. She makes probably 2 or 3 "books" every day, mostly just illustrations. However, if you listen to her as she "reads" these stories, she uses the same words for the same books at each repetition, although the books themselves vary. Occasionally I will use the bravewriter suggestion and write down her stories for her.  She also takes a lot of inspiration from books, movies, and tv shows that she enjoys. For example, she might make a book about a broken boat trying to cross the bay inspired by the Little Engine That Could. You can see exactly where she got every aspect of the book if you are familiar with the source material, but the story itself is hers. Instead of toys there might be dinosaurs. Then, she might take that book about the boat crossing the bay and change it into another story, just a little different. Slowly over time she's created this trail of books that eventually become completely her own, original story.

 

This sort of story telling and writing, to me, sounds almost exactly like what the classical model and progymnasta try to teach. Is this far off? Is dd just really good at the type of mimicry and seeing the details of syntax and plot that you normally have to train children to do? My gut says this stems from her echolalia and the way her brain works and learned language. Does anyone have any insights into that?

 

She is also surprisingly good at grammar and really enjoys it. I thought for sure grammar would be too abstract for her, but she really understands the rules and definitions. It makes me wonder if this is because she had to think about and figure out those rules and how each word works much harder than a normal kid; if her way of learning language led to a deeper understanding of how it works. This thinking has made me thing that teaching her Latin might be good for her.

 

Anyways, these are just my musings. Her language journey has been fascinating to watch, and so different from her neurotypical sisters and any other children I've spent a lot of time around. 

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My spectrum kiddo had only minor echolalia, and it was for really useful information--more like he couldn't help remember it verbatim, and it was too much trouble to translate. So, take what I say with a grain of salt.

 

My son did a lot of changing one thing at a time until something new emerged, it just wasn't with language. It was often with hands-on practical stuff to figure out how it worked. He's a budding handyman at 11 (it doesn't hurt that he started watching This Old House at 2, lol). Even when he doesn't do this himself, he benefits greatly from curriculum options that show something from several different angles. Not repetitive, but things that show the basic concept and strongly suggest the next thing he can do with that concept with several more advanced exercises. Socratic questioning has been a huge help in this regard  as well--it's like turning those facets of thought into conversation.

 

I think you should take it, run with it, and just keep an eye on it as she ages to see if there seems to be a downside or someplace she gets hung up. It truly sounds like she's teaching herself, and I think that's awesome! My son is really good at teaching himself a lot of stuff with the "variation on a theme" approach--I just wish some of it was with writing, lol! Can't complain about the handyman stuff though. Feed her good information that she can use to continue doing this. My son is a youtube fanatic. He will hear about or see something new having to do with vehicles or something, and then finds youtube videos on it. Then I see him doing it with his Bass Pro or radio controlled trucks. One time, I found him performing load tests, quite seriously, studiously, and methodically on his trucks. He gets sheepish if we find him doing it, but besides being cute, he's really teaching himself something practical, and he knows the limitations of what he's doing compared to the real deal, so it's not like he's just mimicking and not understanding. He's doing as serious of a test as he can without actually have the truck and equipment, and he's really watching for results.

 

One thing that many ASD kiddos have trouble with is generalizing information from one setting to another--I think this is a way of generalizing, but it's the long way of getting around to it.

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Until I read this post, it had sort of slipped my mind that dd used to have echolalia. As a matter of fact, I have a couple of kids that used to be very quirky but are just normal teens now. I credit being home all those years with their development into pretty regular kids. Not saying it's any magical thing I did - they just had time to develop on their own without a lot of intervention and diagnoses. Sounds like she's doing great.

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My 11 yo had quite interesting echolalia. He would use the "correct" sentence, but only that one sentence for a long time. So it wasn't the classic quoting from the movies or quoting back the question, but his speech was very limited. He'd say, "I want to sit at the lunch counter" if he was hungry. Or, after school I'd say "tell me two kids you talked to" or "two things that you did." After a while, I'd realize he'd tell me the same two things every day, same phrases. Until he started having more novel language, I really didn't realize how limited his speech was, because what he said sounded "normal" just restricted.

 

Interestingly enough, most of his novel language started after he learned to write. In grade 1, he'd come home with these stories that I could not believe he had written, because he never could have told me any of that stuff. Then, he just started talking more and more and more, and he obsessively wrote stories for 2-3 years, with lots of pictures. We have shelves of his books from that era. I will never forget the day when I thought "I wish S would just be quiet." After years and years of silence and very limited language, it was something I never thought would ever cross my mind. 

 

Anyway, his language tests very well now (receptive high 80s and expressive in the high 90s), though he still has problems with generalizing to people outside the family. I think he mostly reads as shy, though he can come across as disinterested if he's tired or stressed. He can seem very distant after a concert, for example.  With him, it seems that symbolic language made much more sense than aural language. He seemed to get most of his receptive language from reading, and his expressive language from writing. It's all backwards, but it worked for him. In general for most of his development, he has done everything eventually; he just did it all in the "wrong" order. 

 

He also really likes grammar; it seems to appeal to his logical mind. I realized around age 6 that music made so much more sense to him than English, it was like it was his native language. He now absolutely loves music, and spends most of his free time listening to music, composing or studying scores. He started studying scores about 2 years ago, and he never played them, so I wasn't sure what he saw. Then he discovered you-tube, and found all these scores with the music playing in the background. By about a year ago, he told me he could hear the music in his head just by looking at the score, which is really cool, and he has perfect pitch. His compositions initially didn't sound great, but now are really beautiful and musical.  Anyway, I never can figure out how his brain works, but most of the time, it works pretty well, just not like anyone else's. 

 

Sorry for the ramble, but it's a fascinating subject. 

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My 11 yo had quite interesting echolalia. He would use the "correct" sentence, but only that one sentence for a long time. So it wasn't the classic quoting from the movies or quoting back the question, but his speech was very limited. He'd say, "I want to sit at the lunch counter" if he was hungry. Or, after school I'd say "tell me two kids you talked to" or "two things that you did." After a while, I'd realize he'd tell me the same two things every day, same phrases. Until he started having more novel language, I really didn't realize how limited his speech was, because what he said sounded "normal" just restricted.

 

Interestingly enough, most of his novel language started after he learned to write. In grade 1, he'd come home with these stories that I could not believe he had written, because he never could have told me any of that stuff. Then, he just started talking more and more and more, and he obsessively wrote stories for 2-3 years, with lots of pictures. We have shelves of his books from that era. I will never forget the day when I thought "I wish S would just be quiet." After years and years of silence and very limited language, it was something I never thought would ever cross my mind. 

 

Anyway, his language tests very well now (receptive high 80s and expressive in the high 90s), though he still has problems with generalizing to people outside the family. I think he mostly reads as shy, though he can come across as disinterested if he's tired or stressed. He can seem very distant after a concert, for example.  With him, it seems that symbolic language made much more sense than aural language. He seemed to get most of his receptive language from reading, and his expressive language from writing. It's all backwards, but it worked for him. In general for most of his development, he has done everything eventually; he just did it all in the "wrong" order. 

 

He also really likes grammar; it seems to appeal to his logical mind. I realized around age 6 that music made so much more sense to him than English, it was like it was his native language. He now absolutely loves music, and spends most of his free time listening to music, composing or studying scores. He started studying scores about 2 years ago, and he never played them, so I wasn't sure what he saw. Then he discovered you-tube, and found all these scores with the music playing in the background. By about a year ago, he told me he could hear the music in his head just by looking at the score, which is really cool, and he has perfect pitch. His compositions initially didn't sound great, but now are really beautiful and musical.  Anyway, I never can figure out how his brain works, but most of the time, it works pretty well, just not like anyone else's. 

 

Sorry for the ramble, but it's a fascinating subject. 

 

 

Sounds like these kids with echolalia have a lot in common. I feel like I could have written most of your post about my own dd. She's also a born musician. Went through a story writing phase. Though she was an early talker, she never seemed to really be communicating - like a parrot. She said the words perfectly but there was a disconnect. But now, she's fine and thriving. :)

 

Ps - nice to see another maritimer here - I'm in NB. 

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