He has been in a program for developmentally delayed children but had his evaluation done for Autism today. They feel he is autistic. He has no problem with hearing and is not dyslexic. He reads and spells already many words (he is 4); been counting to 100 since he is three. Yep.. he marches to his own drummer. There are many things that I have seen that leaned towards autism, such as grouping items at an early age and lining them up, refusual to eat all but a few things, and becomming very upset if his routine is broken. But he has none of the other things like not liking to cuddle etc. He is sweet and loving and is not aggessive at all.. At 2 he was babbling constantly with meaning, its just WE couldnt understand what he was saying. Turns out what he does is repeat movies or Tv shows, computer programs or talking toys. Everthing he says he has seen or heard somewhere it seems. He for years has been picking up things and saying the "thing" and the letter it starts with. For instance he points to a cat and says C is for Cat. He will say the colors it has but little else about it. I believe he got a lot of it from computer programs I had him use because everyone was concerned he wasnt talking. He went from about 5 recongizable words to 50 in like three days so we thought this was great. My concern is that we need to teach him to talk about things not just repeat things he heard. If we ask him a question, (and he isnt ignoring us at the time) he wont answer it. For instance he was bit by a child in school twice and when we ask him who bit him or what happened he says nothing. If I ask him if he wants Milk or Juice he will not answer. He rarely stops talking but its all repeating other things. One day he perched himself on top of the sofa and said " Tommy do you want to jump or slide" then he said " I want to JUMP" then jumped off the sofa. This was something that happened in school where the teacher was trying to give him choices. So now that he can verbalize things I wonder how to teach him to answer questions or have discussion.
Anne
[QUOTE=MsSteelersFan]
Hi Anne and Welcome............
Yes repeating things and asking and answering the question does sound familuar ,..... its called ECHOLALIA.
Is your grandson diagnosed with anything? Speech delay, communication disorder, hearing problems, An ASD etc? There are many things that can cause echolalia, thats why I ask. And echolalia is actually a good thing in some ways because it promotes speech. How old is your grandson? Does he have any other odd things he does? Is this the only speech he has?
Echolalia can be signs of a communication disorder, hearing disorder tourettes, an ASD, etc. Here are a few links about Echolalia..... http://www.autisticsociety.org/modules.php?name=Encyclopedia &op=list_content&eid=36
http://www.medfriendly.com/echolalia.html
Also some info on characteristics of ASD's....... http://autism.about.com/cs/whatisautism/l/blcharac.htm
http://ww2.rochester.k12.mn.us/region10/Staff___Specialists/ Autism/autism.htm
http://www.child-autism.com/html/autism-symptoms-and-signs.p hp3
If your grandson has not been evaluated for any disabilities I suggest you look into your area's Early Intervention program and ask for a screening.
[/QUOTE]I cant belive it took me so long to find this group. I will be showing this to my daughter in law because this is exactly what she needs. They live in the house behind mine so we are very close. When my granson wants to come to my house now he says "nana- knock knock" and she knows what he wants to do. Today he was here after his evaluation and after he ate two pieces of pizza walked to the back door and said "bye nana". that was that.
If you want to see a cute picture of him I entered a photo I took in a contest and it is being published in a book titled the Best of 2005. Here is the link.
http://www.picture.com/display.asp?ID=1677432
Anne
Just wanted to say welcome to the board! It is a great place. I absolutely love the support and helpful advice and info. Sounds like aspergers by some of what you say. I don't know if echolia is part of aspergers, but the reading/spelling/counting early I've heard is part of it. With aspergers there is no speech delay, but usually advanced things like reading early and what not. Best of luck with the eval I hope it gives the answers you seek.
Amber
Anne,
My son is echolalic. He is 3.5 years old and he has autism. He started using this form of language when he began putting sentances together. It can be quite useful and it also has helped him develop more appropriate language. With therapies he now uses it about 50% of the time. The other 50% is spontanious now and more appropriate. He seems to use it more when he learns new phrases or see's new shows or movies now. They seem to eventually blend into normal forms of language later but begin with this form of speech. Sometimes he will use it when he doesn't understand how to answer me or wants to communicate something to me but unable to find the right words. Although sometimes it was when he would learn a phrase like you were talking about with objects. When he uses echolalia I encourage the speaking and will try and communicate with him about what he is repeating. It can be frustrating at times especially if I have no idea what he's talking about but I still feel fortunate that he is verbal and making progress. I seen on your other post that your grandson has an autism evaluation tomorrow. Please give us an update after that appt. Take care and again..Welcome to the board!
Karrie
Hi Anne and Welcome............
Yes repeating things and asking and answering the question does sound familuar ,..... its called ECHOLALIA.
Is your grandson diagnosed with anything? Speech delay, communication disorder, hearing problems, An ASD etc? There are many things that can cause echolalia, thats why I ask. And echolalia is actually a good thing in some ways because it promotes speech. How old is your grandson? Does he have any other odd things he does? Is this the only speech he has?
Echolalia can be signs of a communication disorder, hearing disorder tourettes, an ASD, etc. Here are a few links about Echolalia..... http://www.autisticsociety.org/modules.php?name=Encyclopedia &op=list_content&eid=36
http://www.medfriendly.com/echolalia.html
Also some info on characteristics of ASD's....... http://autism.about.com/cs/whatisautism/l/blcharac.htm
http://ww2.rochester.k12.mn.us/region10/Staff___Specialists/ Autism/autism.htm
http://www.child-autism.com/html/autism-symptoms-and-signs.p hp3
If your grandson has not been evaluated for any disabilities I suggest you look into your area's Early Intervention program and ask for a screening.
Hello and yes my son does this to, I thought it was cute at first but now it gets very frustrating !! He has improved also with ST so he doesn't use it as much as he used to. But sometimes out of the blue he will start rambling off lines from his favorite movies mostly when he is tired and acting goofy. But this is very common in kids on the specrtrum I have heard. My son also acts out alot of scenes from movies with his toys which I don't think is a bad thing until it is all he is talking about and doing and then I have to sit back and sort out what is typical play and what is obsessive play. He is five now and goes to school all day and I will say it has lessened some from when he was 3 yrs old. That seemed to be the age when all of his behaviors were at there worse. Could be because we didn't have a dx and because he wasn't getting any therapy of any kind. But yes it is echolalia and my son does it too.My grandson repeats sentences he has heard on tv and can recite full videos. The other thing he does is asks himself the question and answers it. For example just out of the blue he will say "what color is the engine?" and then he answers it. One day I was so excited that he came over and stated "ladybugs are my favorite bug"! Then I found out that he heard it on Dora. He has always talked a blue streak but no one could understand what he said. Now we can usually understand him but he is simply repeating things he has heard and not making up his own sentences. When he picks up a helicopter, airplane or flying toy he always says "airplanes (or whichever it is) fly high in the sky" He knows what things fly high in the sky (blimp bird etc), but it seems to be the only thing he says about the item other than describing it and reciting the parts of the item. (what is this? this is the tail")
Does this sound familiar to any of you?
Anne
Hello Anne.
Your story sounds to familiar. My ds obsessions are reading/spelling/counting. He counts everything. His first words were the numbers 1 - 10 at 22 months. He can see a number or letter in any situation. If you take a bite out of a sandwich he sees the letter C. The other day while I was changing his diaper he concocted his arms into the letter K. He arranges his crayons to make numbers and letters (he also colors too). When he sees a hand he doesn't say "hand", he says "five" because there are five fingers even though he knows it's a hand.
My ds also repeats Elmo what seems like all day long. I can only distract him by singing a song or turning on a CD. He just loves music and knows so many songs. He memorizes them after only hearing them once or twice (the same with books). Now if I could just get him to communicate with me.
You might want to look up HYPERLEXIA if you haven't already. I truly believe my son is hyperlexic.
Good luck and take care.
Yah hyperlexic that's what I was trying to think of when I posted. Good going Stephanie you're on the ball! :-)
Amber
Holy cow same thing with Tom. He sees letters and numbers in everything too! I will definately look that one up!
[QUOTE=NoahsMom]
Hello Anne.
Your story sounds to familiar. My ds obsessions are reading/spelling/counting. He counts everything. His first words were the numbers 1 - 10 at 22 months. He can see a number or letter in any situation. If you take a bite out of a sandwich he sees the letter C. The other day while I was changing his diaper he concocted his arms into the letter K. He arranges his crayons to make numbers and letters (he also colors too). When he sees a hand he doesn't say "hand", he says "five" because there are five fingers even though he knows it's a hand.
You might want to look up HYPERLEXIA if you haven't already. I truly believe my son is hyperlexic.
Good luck and take care.
[/QUOTE]We havent gotton the results of the "formal" evaluation yet but one of the things they did was give him a puzzle with letters in. One letter was missing. He asked them "where is the Z"? It actually was one of the very few things he has communicated on his own as his own thought with his own sentence. Most of the time though he kept trying to get out of the room and going to the door.
Anne