Autism Speaks: What is Echolalia?

Echolalia is the repetition of vocalizations made by another person or in other words they will often
just echo what you have said. Examples would be people's conversational exchanges, clips from
videos, books read aloud, songs, etc. It has been reported that up to 75% of verbal persons with
autism can exhibit echolalia in some form. Echolalia is not just found in people with autism but it may
also be present in Tourette syndrome, developmental disability, or schizophrenia.

Both my boys have quite abit of echolalia in their speech, although I would say that there has been a
mark decrease in echolalia as they have gotten older. My oldest son's echolalia tends to come out
when we talk to him, he often repeats what we have said to him or if we ask him a question he will
repeat it right back to us. My youngest son tends to echolalic the videos he watches, days, weeks or
even months later he will echo a clip from one of his videos and often in the same tone of voice from
the character from the video.

There seems to be two types of echolalia: immediate echolalia and delayed echolalia. Immediate
echolalia is a repetition of something that the child just heard and delayed echolalia is a repetition of
information heard previously - minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.

Some people view echolalia as just meaningless speech but there are some professionals that believe
that echolalia may serve as a communication function for the individual with autism. Researchers have
found that immediate echolalia seems to tap into the person's short-term memory for auditory input
and delayed echolalia seems to tap into long-term auditory memory.

Professionals believe that the presence of echolalia in children with autism may be a favorable
indicator for future meaningful language development. The feel that it shows that the child is at least
processing language. Echolalia was at one time regarded as just another inappropriate behavior to
eliminate in a person with autism, however, researchers presently view echolalia now as a valuable
bridge toward more established use of language.

Researchers view language that occurs in stages in children with autism and as the child's language
skills improve, it is expected that the echolalia will diminish somewhat. Although individuals with
autism, may often get "stuck" at any stage in the continuum and language may not progress beyond
echolalia.