Functional Categories of Delayed Echolalia, IRCA Articles, Access Autism

IRCA Articles, Access Autism, Indiana Resource Center for Autism

Functional Categories of Delayed Echolalia

Contributed by Beverly Vicker, CCC-SLP

What is Delayed Echolalia and How Can One Recognize It?

Delayed echolalia is the repetition of verbal messages that were previously heard and which are repeated after a time delay of several minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or, even years. It can be difficult to recognize usage of delayed echolalia if the listener was not present when the original utterance was produced. Even if the listener was present when the original message was uttered, the listener may have forgotten the incident or the wording, and thus fails to recognize the echoed version as an echolalic utterance rather than original commenting. This is a common situation.

The listener will need to look for clues. If a message sounds significantly different in vocabulary, syntax, and message sophistication than the echolalic speaker’s typical spontaneous speech, the naive listener may be hearing echolalic dialogue. This may be particularly true of situations when the echoed message is sophisticated dialogue that seems to fit a current moment or situation. The associated dialogue, however, may actually reflect experienced or overheard conversations or may represent dialogue heard from TV shows, DVDs, or what was read in books. Not all repetitions fit a given situation, so echolalic communication usage is often not effective. Many utterances are clearly recognized as possible echolalia since it is unlikely that the comment or phrase would be uttered by a person who is familiar with a particular social/language culture or by someone of the age of the speaker. Other more clearly marked examples of delayed echolalia include the use of commercials and song lyrics within situations.

Why Do Some Children With ASD Use Echolalia?

Barry Prizant, in his research on communicative functions, postulated that children with ASD use what is called “gestalt processing.” Instead of the child recognizing most words and meaning from how sentences were constructed with those words, the child memorizes the whole of what he has heard. He may also store a mental tag about the situation in which the chunk of talk was used or he may tag the association with a key word. He has not analyzed the dialogue and may not be aware of the need to do so to get more exact meaning. Typical brains are wired to attempt to obtain meaning from social dialogue. Instead the child with ASD will snatch the phrase or dialogue from his memory when something triggers the associated recall. This association may not be obvious to the naïve listener since the child’s recall may be triggered by an obscure aspect of the original situation that only he tuned into. For example, a parent, thinking about the lovely weather, commented to herself, “Oh my, my car really needs washing.” as she bent over her flowerbeds. Hence forth, when looking at any flowers, the child might make the comment about washing the car.

Temple Grandin, a well known adult with ASD, once said that she was three years old before she recognized that the blah-blah-blah she heard from people’s mouth’s had meaning and that she needed to attend to it. Learning more about comprehension of language and how to combine words to express meaning represents the journey ahead for children who use significant delayed echolalia. Fortunately there are many optional paths to facilitate that journey.

What Are The Functions of Delayed Echolalia?

The most comprehensive descriptive article on delayed echolalia is still the 1984 publication, Analysis of Functions of Delayed Echolalia in Autistic Children by Barry Prizant and Patrick Rydell. This article appeared in the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research (Vol. 27, pp 183-192). The following is a simplified version of their description, with examples generated by the author and reviewed by Dr. Prizant. This publication is a companion to one entitled Functional Categories of Immediate Echolalia. The goal of this article is to provide information regarding various purposeful and non-purposeful uses of delayed echolalia. It is not intended to serve as a guide for clinical evaluation or classification of data. The original article and other more recent articles and book chapter references on echolalia should be consulted when information is needed to guide evaluation practices.

For purposes of clarity and brevity, the term “echolalic speaker” is used in the examples instead of the phrase “the person who uses echolalic speech.” No disrespect is intended by the use of non-people-first language.

Functional Categories for Delayed Echolalia Interactive Scenarios, that is, communication directed to another person
Category	Description	Example
Turn taking/ interactive	Utterances used as turn fillers in an alternating verbal exchange.	Adult speaker: "What did you do this weekend?" Echolalic speaker: "Don't take your trunks off in the swimming pool." Adult speaker: "Oh, you went swimming?" Echolalic speaker: "Put your goggles on. Then you won't get chlorine in your eyes."
Verbal completion/ interactive	Utterances which complete familiar verbal routines initiated by others.	Adult speaker: "Wash your hands." Echolalic speaker: As he washes his hands, he says, "Good boy." His teacher typically says that to reinforce completion of an act.
Providing information/ interactive	Utterances offering new information not apparent from situational context (may be initiated or respondent).	A parent is about to begin preparation for lunch. She says, “What would you like for lunch?” The echolalic speaker begins singing a song about a brand name luncheon meat as a way of communicating that he would like a sandwich for lunch. No luncheon meat was mentioned nor was anything visible that would have triggered the idea of a specific luncheon meat sandwich. He got meaning from the word “lunch” but was unable to construct a sentence on his own.
Labeling/ interactive	Utterances labeling objects or actions in environment.	An adult and child are sorting through DVDs. The echolalic speaker picks up a Barney DVD and sings a specific song as he makes a quick look at the adult. Adult acknowledges, “Yes, that’s one of your favorite songs from that DVD.” The child goes on looking through the pile; he doesn’t indicate that he had wanted to see the DVD; thus, it was a comment of identification or recognition of the DVD and a song associated with it.
Protest/ interactive	Utterances protesting actions of others. May be used to prohibit others' actions and reflect prohibitions expressed by others.	Echolalic speaker sees another child throwing paper on the floor. He says, “How many times have I told you not to do that? I’ve told you a 1000 times. Go to time out. I’ll count to three. 1-2-3.” He is echoing what his grandmother has told him when he has shredded paper and thrown it.
Request/ interactive	Utterances used to request objects.	The echolalic speaker goes to an adult and says, "Do you want juice?" as his means of saying he's thirsty.
Affirmation/ interactive	Utterances used to indicate affirmation of previous utterance.	The adult asks the child, "What would you like for snack? Juice? Crackers? Banana?" Echolalic speaker says, "Do you want juice?" to indicate that he wants juice.
Directive/ interactive	Utterances (often imperatives) used to direct another's actions.	The echolalic speaker walks over to an adult standing by the TV/DVD player. He says, “You. Ready; let’s exercise. Touch your toes, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. Now to the left....” By using some dialogue from a DVD, he is indicating that he wants the adult to play that DVD (an action) so he can exercise.
Noninteractive: Scenarios, that is, messages for personal use
Category	Description	Example
Nonfocused/ personal	Utterances with no apparent communicative intent or relevance to the situational context. May be self-stimulatory or personally satisfying.	The child walks around the classroom repeating portions of a sports broadcast heard sometime in the past. There has been no visible trigger to the outside observer, although one may have existed for the child.
Situation association/ personal	Utterances with no apparent communicative intent which appear to be triggered by an object, person, situation, or activity.	The child sees the Indiana University logo in a store window and begins to sing the Indiana fight song . He has learned the song from a commercial which aired during televised university basketball games.
Self- directive/ personal	Utterances which serve to regulate one's own actions. Produced in synchrony with motor activity.	The child begins jumping on the bed. He loudly says to himself in a angry tone, "How many times have I told you not to jump on that bed? The rule is 'No jumping on the bed.' I'll count to 3. 1-2- 3." The child then gets down off the bed.
Rehearsal/ personal	Utterances produced with low volume followed by louder interactive production. Appears to be practice for subsequent production.	The adult asks, "What do you want to eat?" Echolalic child softly says to himself several times, "I want cracker, please." He then looks toward the adult and says, "I want cracker, please" at normal voice volume.
Label/ personal	Utterances labeling objects or actions in environment with no apparent communicative intent. May be a form of practice for learning language.	The echolalic speaker notes an open window. He walks in big circles repeating, "Window. Close the window. It's cold in here. (It's 80 degrees outside.) Close the window." He makes no attempt to close it or to get someone else to do it.
Self regulatory/calming (This is not one of Prizant’s original functions but he has written much over the years about the role of self-regulation.)	In contrast to self directive function, the self regulatory message may have no direct relationship to the situation but the person with ASD has soothing memories associated with the message and repeats it to self regulate himself.	As a child, his parents read the book Good Night Moon to him every night before he fell asleep. When he gets upset, he recites portions of the story to calm himself.

Vicker, B. (2009). Functional categories of delayed echolalia. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Resource Center for Autism.