The answer to this question is YES and NO. Echolalia used functionally can help your child use and understand language; however, echolalia used non-functionally can have the adverse effect and can actually hinder your child’s progress.

The term echolalia is used to refer to the use of “memorized chunks” of language that are reproduced as a single unit either immediately after it was produced or significantly later. Echolalia is unlike typical language acquisition, in that these “memorized chunks” of language are used without the child understanding each single word. For example, many children are taught to ask “I want cookie please.” Children that use this within the form of echolalia have memorized “I want ______ please” gets me that thing I want. They have no understanding of the separate words “I”, “want” or “please”. It is important to know that there are different types of echolalia and that some are functional and/or communicative, while some are not. Some children use immediate echolalia, others use delayed echolalia and some use both.

Immediate echolalia occurs immediately after it was produced and involves the exact repetition of the utterance or very minimal changes of the utterance. A child may be using immediate echolalia functionally for the following purposes: attempting to understanding what the speaker said, attempting to remember what the speaker said or attempting to answer the speaker. For example, if you ask your child “Do you want milk or water?” and your child immediately repeats “Do you want milk or water?”…….then pauses……then says “milk”, they were attempting to answer your question. They just needed to hear their options again. This is something that we as adults do all the time within our head but your child may do it out loud. A child may use immediate echolalia in a non-functional way as well.

Delayed echolalia occurs significantly later than when the original utterance was produced and it too involves the exact repetition of the utterance or with minimal changes. Delayed echolalia may be used functionally or non-functionally as well. For example, your child may have memorized something that he/she heard from a popular television show such as “That’s a good idea” and he/she may use that chunk in the appropriate situations; however, he/she may not understand each separate word such as “that”, “is”, “a”, “good”, “idea”.

How do you know when echolalia is hindering progress? What do you do? This is actually pretty easy to recognize. You know that echolalia is hindering your child’s progress when the majority of your child’s language is delayed echolalia from either television, movies or even from an adult and that they are only saying the language to themselves and not purposefully saying it towards others. They are not saying this delayed echolalia toward an adult nor do they want any response from an adult. You know that it is hindering your child’s progress when your child is using echolalia throughout their school day or learning times. If they can’t stop using it, then the other language goals are not making it through. (These are just a few examples.) What do you do? This is the part where knowing your child is very important Write in a journal. Here we want to know what types of echoes they are using. If it is mostly their favorite television show, one television episode, favorite character, favorite movie, etc……then it is time to cut back on the television. Don’t take television away completely but if you are watching their favorite episode of Elmo once a day, then it is best to cut it back to once a week. Has it been raining for a month so your child hasn’t been able to go outside and play? This can have a huge effect! ALL kids need sensory input and especially our kids. Their increase in echoes could be a shout for I NEED MORE SENSORY INPUT. Has your child not been sleeping?? This can also be a huge effect. Think of yourself when you don’t get enough sleep. You probably don’t perform at your best level, you probably want to only do the things you want to do and you probably get a cup of coffee. Your child is the same way. If they didn’t get enough sleep then they could be using echolalia to communicate because it is easier for them when compared to thinking and using functional language. Has their daily structure/routine been out of whack? Did you go on vacation? Did a brother/sister go to camp/college? Anything that can throw off your child’s routine can increase their echolalia. Knowing your child and what they are telling you by using echolalia will be your key on how to help them decrease the use of non-functional echoes.

So the next big question is, how do we turn non-functional echolalia into functional echolalia???? Well, we turn non-functional echoes into functional ones by modeling their use within play that the child understands and loves. How do we do this? Tackle one or two at a time. A few years ago I had a little one in love with Bob the Builder and he would use the phrase “Can we build it, yes we can!” over and over, all day long without any functional use. So here is how we turned this phrase into something functional. We would play with constructive toys like blocks and pegs and we would build roads, tunnels, bridges and towers. As we built, I would say “Can we build it!? Yes we can!” and then go into our building routine. After a few times of this new routine, he began to respond to me saying “yes we can” with a huge smile and an eye gaze. Later he began to initiate “Can we build it?” and look at me for a response. When we were not playing with a constructive toy and he would use his phrase, I would ignore it. Eventually, he began to only use this phrase within constructive play and he would use this appropriately. Now did he understand each separate word, NO. But this phrase allowed us to do a lot of cool things: 1) change his routine, 2) respond to a comment made by an adult, 3) initiate a comment with an adult, 4) initiate play with an adult, 5) initiate play/comment with a child (we were later able to bridge this to play with typical peers), 6) increase eye gazing, 7) increase eye contact and 8) increase joint attention skills. WOW!

We think that there are three big things that we hope you take from this blog 1) Biggest thing to know is that using functional echolalia can help increase your child’s understanding, increase your child’s expressive language, increase their eye contact, increase their joint attention and much more if you use and work on the skills appropriately. 2)That some (not all) non-functional echoes may be turned into functional echolalia with a lot of time and work. 3) And that sometimes when your child is using echolalia, they are really trying to tell you something like “I am sleepy”, “Where did Sister go”, “I don’t understand”, “I need to swing and run outside” and more!

Amanda and Laura
KidSpeak, LLC
www.kidspeakdallas.com