Echolalia – a Good Sign for a Child with Autism

Repeating back what has been said, or being able to sing an entire TV commercial or children's video is called "echolalia." But you dont have to worry because "Echolalia" is actually a good sign in a child with autism.

A child's brain is processing language even though he may not understand the meaning of the words he hears. He needs to learn that words are used for communication. So whenever the child says the word "apple," immediately give him an apple. The autistic child will associate the word "apple" with getting a real apple.

Some children use phrases from TV commercials or children's videos in an appropriate manner on various situations. This is how they learn languages. For example, if a child says part of a breakfast cereal slogan at breakfast, go and give him the cereal.

In verifying to what has been said, the autistic children also use echolalia. Some of them have difficulty hearing hard consonant sounds such as "d" in dog or "b" in boy. Repeating the phrase will help them to hear it. Children who pass a pure tone hearing test can still have difficulty hearing complex speech sounds. Children with this difficulty may learn to read and speak with the aid of flash cards that contains both a printed word and a picture of an object. By using these cards the children learn to associate the spoken word with the printed word and a picture. Consonants are more difficult to learn for some autistic children while the vowel sounds are more easy for them.