When children are developing language, they learn from what they hear in their environment.
They learn to speak by repeating what they hear around them. With time, they begin to put words together to make up their own utterances and reduce the repetitions/imitations by age two.
However, some children continue to repeat what they hear and may not make their own utterances. When a child repeats or imitates what someone else has said he/she is said to be using echolalia. Children who use echolalia may repeat words or sentences of familiar people such as parents, teachers, siblings, and peers or they might repeat utterances from their favourite cartoons, video games etc.
While some children may repeat utterances right after they hear them others may repeat utterances at a later time. When utterances are repeated right after hearing them, they are referred to as immediate echolalia. Repetition of utterances at a later time is known as delayed echolalia. An example of an immediate echolalia is when you ask a child “Do you want to sleep?” and they repeat “sleep” right after you have said it instead of saying “yes”.
An example of delayed echolalia is when a child is hungry and he/she repeats what the teacher says at school before lunch “It’s lunchtime” instead of saying “I’m hungry”. Parents can often find it difficult to understand some of these repetitions.
Echolalia and autism
Many children with autism use echolalia. Autism is a condition that affects how a person thinks, feels, interacts with others and experiences their environment. Autistic people can also have repetitive behaviour (such as echolalia) and restricted behaviour. As caregivers of children with autism it might be helpful to know about echolalia and how to use it to help your child’s language development:
- Language learning: Even though most autistic children who use echolalia may not know what the individual words in the repeated phrases may mean, they often know that the whole phrase is related to a particular task, activity or event. For example, the child who repeats “It’s lunch time” when he/she is hungry may not understand what ‘it’s’, ‘lunch’, ‘time’ means but know that the phrase is related to food. Unlike typically developing children, children with autism learn language differently. They may learn language as a chunk (sentences) unlike typically developing children who learn words first and then begin to put words together to make sentences. To help children use words, we need to help them break down the chunks of language and to understand each word in the utterance.
- Purpose of echolalia: While echolalia might sometimes help children to calm themselves down or comfort themselves, it can also be used to send a message to someone. These may include drawing someone’s attention to something, initiating an interaction, asking or requesting for things, rejection or saying ‘yes’ to something. It is often not easy to work out the meaning of echolalia. One needs to think about the situation within which the child used the echolalia and when the child might have first heard the utterance to be able to figure out the meaning/link.
- Echolalia can help children learn to use language spontaneously: According to research, children with autism learn language in chunks and gradually go through other processes to begin to put words together to communicate naturally.
If you are concerned that your child is repeating words he/she has heard around them, it is advisable to see a speech and language therapist who will assess your child and provide advice/intervention to help with his/her language development.
The author is a Speech and Language Therapist/Clinical Tutor at the University of Ghana
