this may sound stupid
but has he seen a horse recently
my aspie syas he wants toast when he wants to go on the climbing frame because the frame is square like toast
it could be anyhting from knowing a horse can move and take him away from the unknown
or he may use the word horse but mean something else
or he may know people are kind and nice to horses and he wants people to be kind and nice
what are his actions when he does this
his he trying to get away on the floor,in your face let me know hun
shell
He hasn't seen any real horses in a long time... He does have a figurine horse and farm puzzles and books.
if he has speech probs he could just be getting letters mixed up he may mean bye you or something similer
keep an eys on it try to see what he is doing and what he was doing before
the more you watch the more your eyes and ears will see and understand things
i dont think he meant to say horse at all but horse was the only word he could get out thats why he threw the horse he knew he said horse and it was wrong you gave him the horse which infuriated him because you did not understand
next time try saying
show mummy show mummy horse
he may take you to something completly unrelated
whe first said lucas want toast i made him toast
then on the park
he said nice toast lucas is here
i knew then words are not always how they come out
love shell
Jadon seems to have one phrase that he will repeat over and over again, esp when people he is not familiar with are around. His current thing to say is, "I want horse" or "I want Nay"... If I give him a toy horse, he will throw it on the ground. I can tell he doesn't really want it. Do you know why he does this? Is it considered stimming? Just trying to understand.it could be something he picked up from a book, or a show, or something said in conversation or play (echolalia)...my son will just spout chapter and verse from TV shows or books we've read sometimes, completely out of nowhere...it is a comfort thing for him, he wants to make conversation, but doesn't know how, and this is how he initiates....
I agree with spectrummum, there's a likely chance that he's just saying a workd he knows/can say. I work with a little guy who tends to scream/yell when he gets excited, but the moment you give him something appropraite to say, he stops. If you can figure out what he wants when he says this, you might be able to rediret him to say something appropriate. Maybe something as simple as trying to have him say "Mommy, play with me" or "I want a snack", will help him to learn to say something else (even though that might not necessarily be what he wants, maybe it'll be good enough for him.)
it could be something he picked up from a book, or a show, or something said in conversation or play (echolalia)...my son will just spout chapter and verse from TV shows or books we've read sometimes, completely out of nowhere...it is a comfort thing for him, he wants to make conversation, but doesn't know how, and this is how he initiates....
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I agree with this.
My son does something similar. He loves Thomas the train. So at night when he wakes up crying, he will ask for "Thomaaas!". Even after I had given him every Thomas the train figure we have, he would continue to cry out for Thomas. I finally figured out what we wanted. He wanted me to lay in the bed with him untill he was sleepy again.
I am not sure why he choses to ask for Thomas, when he wants me to lay down with him. His launguage is severly delayed, and it might be the only way he can express himself at that moment, or it could have some hidden connection that I am not getting.
Do you think it could be something similar with your son? He could be asking for one thing, but want something totally different. Good luck!
Does he know other words?
Another thing to consider is this, my dd was told to "do this" and then the person clapped their hands without saying clap you hands. Then she thought "do this" means "clap your hands".
So may be he saw the horse in a book or tv etc do something or it was with something and thinks the name of it is "horse" or "nay".
Like a child might say "I want cow" "I want moo" instead of "I want milk". Maybe he knows wehn he says "I want" it's supposed to be acted upon and when it's not he keeps repeating it. My dd often repeats and repeats and repeats to get a desired action her vocab is "aaah" although I don't often know exactly what it is; once she gets what she wants she stops.
My son does this as well. I have noticed that he does this when his anxiety kicks up like going to a new place, if someone he does not know starts asking him questions, or when he honestly has no idea what else to say. My son says good-bye to everyone however, he says it about 10-15 times or delayed by about 30 seconds. I do not understand it either. I will let you know if I find out why this happens as well.
I would start writing it down when you notice this and if you are seeing an OT ask them. Maybe there is something you can do or give him to calm him down. I do think it is there way of calming them selves down..it is something that sounds familiar to him. Just a guess. Good Luck.
I think he may using the phrase to say several different things in place of words he doesn't know. It may also be something he says as a calming thing in situations and he actually doesn't want anything at that time.Everyone has had lots of good answers, all very good possibilities.
When my son has had periods of repeating a phrase, they were always about something that was emotionally-charged. At age 2, he repeated "it's naughty to fight" hundreds of times a day. At age 3, he repeated "it's dangerous in the road". At age 6, he repeated "no owie on me." Maybe your son connects horses with danger, and he's trying to wrap his little brain around that, although it sounds more likely that he sees horses as an escape from stress/danger like spectrummum said.
My son also seemed to "lose his words" at night and in stimulating situations. He wouldn't be able to tell me what he needed or answer my questions, but would just melt-down.
I'd suggest that if he starts talking about the horse in a stimulating setting (for example new people around), I'd take him to a safe quiet place and see if he could explain himself better there.
Finally, you might be interested in this article about the functions of echolalia:
http://groups.msn.com/TheAutismHomePage/echolaliafacts.msnw
Echolalia can be used as functional communication, and the article includes a chart showing the phases that autistics can go through, where echolalia has most of the communication functions at first, and spontaneous language has most of the communication functions in the end. The list of functions might help you "translate" his intent when he uses echolalia.
Good luck figuring this out.