COMMUNICATION
Children with ASD and more language skills may be echolalic.
Echolalia is expressive language dominated by immediate or
delayed repetition of the words and phrases of others, and it is
accompanied by significant limitations in comprehension.
For a brief overview, let’s consider these three arbi-
trary groups, which blend together at the edges, and
the characteristics that contribute to an autism spec-
trum diagnosis.
Children have little or no speech for a lot of reasons,
including hearing impairment, severe cognitive lim-
itations from brain injury or intellectual disability,
dysarthria (paralysis or weakness of oral muscles), or
dyspraxia (limitations in voluntary motor control of
muscles of articulation despite an absence of paraly-
sis or paresis). Any of these can and do occur with au-
tism, but they do not qualify a person for an autism
diagnosis. The typical autism features of children at
this early developmental level of language acquisi-
tion involve a significant lack of attempts to com-
municate in ways that compensate for the limited
speech. For example, the child with autism is far less
likely than others to communicate by pointing, ges-
turing, or using communicative eye gaze and facial
expression. A nonverbal child with autism may see a
cookie on the table and stand beside you, reaching
for it and screaming, or may climb to get it without
making any direct effort to get you to help him/her. A
child who is not talking because he/she is too young,
is deaf, or has cognitive delays is much more likely to
look at you and then at the cookie or look at you and
point to the cookie. In a common early spontaneous
communication attempt, a child with autism may
take your hand and put it on an item he/she wants,
or a door he/she wants to be opened. But this is of-
ten done without eye contact as if your hand were
simply a tool. Some children who are being taught
sign language will take your hands to sign “all done”
or “more” rather than signing with their own hands.
As speech, sign, or picture communication is taught
or develops, children are apt to mainly use it to ask
for things, rather than comment, answer, or share
information, and frequently, the functional uses of
language have to be specifically taught, even for
the most basic function of requesting. Those who
can say a few words may say them infrequently or
only with prompting. By contrast, typically develop-
ing children are able—through gesture, action, eye
gaze, facial expression, and vocalization—to make
requests, seek help, direct others, greet people,
point out things of interest, protest specifically, and
respond to conversation before they can talk.
Children with ASD and more language skills may be
echolalic. Echolalia is expressive language dominat-
ed by immediate or delayed repetition of the words
and phrases of others, and it is accompanied by sig-
nificant limitations in comprehension.
Echolalia is not intentional and does not change in
response to adult commands or explanations. The
echoing child is taking his/her conversational turn,
depending on his/her strong auditory memory skills,
Echolalia is not intentional and does not change in response to
adult commands or explanations. The echoing child is taking
his/her conversational turn, depending on his/her strong auditory
memory skills, and using language as he/she hears without
interpreting how it changes with each speaker.
Autism Parenting Magazine | Issue 87 |
21