What is Echolalia and Its Relation to Autism?

►► Start teaching your child at home. Download my FREE home therapy checklist→ https://www.agentsofspeech.com/checklist

Join our Facebook group:   / speechdelaysupport  

Does it mean it’s Autism?
No, although echolalia is something that Autistic people tend to do… If your child echoes, it doesn’t automatically mean that your child is on the spectrum. In fact, typically developing children also echo and imitate us as a part of language development. Sometimes echolalia might occur in children with Tourette's syndrome as “verbal tics”.

Immediate Echolalia
This means your child immediately echoes what you’ve just said. People would describe their children as “parrots” when this happens. Which begs the question of whether the child understands the word or not. That’s why it’s better to teach children with gestures as well so at least they can grasp the meaning. If you see the child use the word along with the gesture, the chance of him/her showing an understanding is higher.  This is also common when the child has verbal tics. Where it’s an uncontrollable response to every word or phrase said. 

Delayed Echolalia 
This is when your child decides to echo something they have heard some time ago. This might include nursery rhymes, lines from video, or what you have said. Sometimes, this is called scripting. 

It helps language acquisition
Echolalia is something that is argued to help language acquisition. Where verbal imitation is a pre-linguistic skill… Echoing speech might be a child’s way to practice and learn the language. You have to understand that it is at times considered as “verbal stimming” - which is self-stimulation. However, all of us do “stim'' as well, just as long as it’s socially acceptable. In our experience, echolalia happens when a child finds a certain phrase or word amusing. 

Coping mechanism?
Because sometimes it is stimming. Echo-ing actually might be a way that children cope with stress and uncomfortable situations. Whilst this does happen, this is not always the case. As dramatized in the Korean drama - “Move to Heaven”. The main character is an Autistic boy who repeats the same things and bangs his head whenever he feels stressed. Not everyone is like that, and it does happen in real life as well.