(context: bedtime, sat up in bed 'babbling' as I got him ready for bed)
I think I have given up on the 'big' post on Echolalia and have decided to break it into smaller posts. The purpose of this to record snippets of Tokoroth's speech, his receptive and generative speech specifically and to capture his echolalia, if that's even what this is. Remember I am making observations based on what I have read from sources that I trust. I am a lay person therefore it is entirely likely I don't have a clue what I am talking about. Caveat over, let's begin.
What is echolalia?
The flippant answer would be: "what is echolalia?" because it is, simply stated, the repeating of speech as opposed to the generation of speech. Immediate echolalia is literally repeating back the question as a form of answer, Delayed echolalia is the repeating back of phrases (heard on the TV or from people) randomly and out of context days, weeks or months later.
There is a quite detailed explanation of the disorder on a US 'special ed' website which points out this sort of babble is quite normal in toddlers:
"Echolalia occurs in normal language development yet decreases as the typically developing child gains more spontaneous generative language. In children with autism, echolalia occurs with greater frequency and lasts for a longer period of time as the child with autism typically experiences significant difficulty developing spontaneous, generative language skills."Also on that website is an example which actually applies 100% to Tokoroth:
A child with autism is very anxious about where he will be going after school as the destination changes frequently. He says repetitively throughout the day, "Go to grandmas?"
He says that. Exactly that and, probably, for exactly that reason. Right, short and sweet, example one of his echolalia and an explanation of what it is. I intend to collect more examples to feed into his, eventual, multidisciplinary assessment.
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