questions about scripting | Autism PDD

WOW He sounds just like my DD. Her speech really took off when she started to add real life events to her cartoon/commerical scripting. But her scripting takes on a life of its own and we have to reel her in. When she is trying to explain a stressful situation, she goes into tv talk mode and the story gets wild. So we have to remind her to tell us what happened without Danny Phantom in it. She has told some wild tales to the teachers and principal at school. I explained that if it sounds like its a cartoon situation or commercial, they need to remind her not to talk about cartoons, but to tell them what happened in real life. That has worked well.

Last year she upset another little girl who has developmental delays. This little girl is very aggressive, and likes to pinch. She pinched Morgan, so Morgan launched into an episode of Care Bears. She wanted this little girl to go live at Dr. Apple-somethings pet shop, and live in a cage for being mean and pinching. The other little girl was very uspet, and Morgan was upset too. I can only imagine the recess drama that caused. THe principal told me about it that afternoon when I was picking my daughter up. He does lunchtime yard duty and loves my daughters creative solutions, lol, he is such a good sport.

One of my favorite things Morgan does is when she recites entire commercials. She walks up to people, people we know, and sometimes strangers. It usually goes like this. 'Hey Lady, did you know that 60% of adults experience heart burn pain 10 times or more a month?' Then she recites the whole commercial, complete with where to buy the medicine, side effects, and the website address. I had BAN her reciting the Head On commercials, Head on, Apply directly to the forehead. She gets out of hand reciting that commercial.

My advice is let him do that to a point. If he starts telling a tall tale, reel him in and explain cartoon life and real life. I know my daughter will carry on forever if we don't stop her in mid sentence and ask her to stop talking about Danny Phantom and tell us who, what, where and why.

I won't get started on Monster House, its one my my DD's favorites.

The article linked below talks about immediate and delayed echolalia/scripting, and I think it has some of the answers you're looking for.

Really interesting stuff, including a chart that shows how kids can have an apparent regression in functional language because they're cutting back on their use of echolalia and their spontaneous language hasn't quite caught up.

According to the article, even NT kids start with echolalia and "gestalt" language acquisition, but by age 3, they shift over to spontaneous language and "analytic" language acquisition. Kids with autism go through the same progression, just later (and how far they end up going is individual).

http://groups.msn.com/TheAutismHomePage/echolaliafacts.msnw

Good luck with everything.

My son will script when were shopping ,he will use it to describe a product he wants,for eg,there grrreat(for frosted flakes).

One day he had a melt down in the store because he wanted me to buy Lucky Charms,there was a clerk behind us stocking shelves ,her whole body shook with laughter when he yelled at me "THERE MAGICLY DELICIOUS FOR GOD SAKES".

The older he gets the more he drops the scripting ,announcing his topic is what we will be working on now.

Linda

I agree LeAnne C, I am still searching for good scripts to use in common situations. Ususally works better than what I come up with. My files need some organizing to find the scripts tho.Does anyone notice their ds/dd scripting another child in voice tone and
action? My ds will comfort anyone in distress, but he gets this cutsey tone
and mannerism that I swear was once used on him. It's really adorable, but I
don't know what to make of it.I'd say yes, it's very much the next step in speech, and the more language he's exposed to, the more phrases he will be able to quote and combine. (When I spoke at my most fluent-sounding, a good way to tell that I was doing that was that my pauses were just in very slightly different places than usual while speaking. The only people who noticed it, though, were people who used the same strategy I did, and a speech pathologist.)

Scripting in appropriate situations is a great step forward. Cole did and still does this, and although it is not "original" language, he is communicating!

I don't speak a lick of Spanish, but when we occasionally head to old Mexico, this gal can script: Dunde esta el banyo? To me, kids on the spectrum are like people learning a second language...I think some of them actually memorize phrases until they can smoothly "think" in the language. It is an excellent bridge..funky to others listening, but a bridge nonetheless.

Yep...I'd definitely be happy with something like that. Jacobs speech should get there pretty soon. He already says, "There you go," to me when he hands me his sippy cup for a refill. He says that becasue every time I used to hand him something to drink in his bottle I'd say, "There you go." Total scripting to me, but others who see him don't think so. That's a good thing in my book. IT can make for some sticky situations with family members who see it and think it's spontaneous, and you know it's not. They think, "There's no way there's anything wrong with this child." I think, "He's able to "pass"."Rhosyn39359.3463773148OMGosh!!! he is so cute and awesome
YEAH MAson!!

It sure shows how he is paying attention.

My ds has memorized many many things about life and that is just how he learns.
He memorizes and then it starts to become more natural....to the point where his autism diagnosis is being questioned at the centre he is at right now becuas eh makes eye contact and "can talk" to peers and other things that appear normal??
It is almost a good thing as long as people remember tho give him time to figure things out. It takes alot of energy to go through all those files in his head to get things right! But he never stops trying...it has helped him and has been his coping skill. I bet Mason is building up his files too!!!

Keep it up Mason and Mommy!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks guys! I was really excited by what seems to be developing, so I figured it had to be a good thing!

Kathy, that's a great idea! I will work with him on turning it into conversation rather than just running around quoting!

I know some of his other speech is echolalia...I can tell mostly when he adds the correct pronouns, etc. But I never say anything because I figure he is using it the right way and noone can tell it's actually echolalia. When we would work on the weather I would always say "it's a beautiful clear day today." So I hear him saying that any time it's sunny, but it's a full sentence and I love that. I know he uses it at school too, because they have the student of the day and they are asked what day it is, what the weather is like, and then a sentence for the day--his teacher writes it down on a piece of paper and it gets sent home.

Mason's sheet from last week said--

Mason says today is Thursday. It's a beautiful clear day today. I play Clifford on computer.

I just had to chuckle when I saw that.

Well now I've noticed too that when he is walking around just quoting for no particular reason, he is adding which movie or commercial it is from. He will says "Hey DJ, who am I? Get off my lawn!" and then adds "that's Monster House" to the end. Is this common when someone is scripting? It's not really echolalia if he is adding his own stuff to it, is it?

Guess I'm just trying to figure out if this is like the next step in his speech? Is this a good thing? Guess I'm just curious because this scripting really only started last year. Before that his talking was just simple requests and simple answering of questions, so when he started scripting these big long lines from movies, I was so impressed. I have read a couple of websites about scripting and how children might use it functionally, but I have not read anywhere if this could be the next step in speech. Will it continue to get more and more of his own thing, like slowly weeding out the scripting?

Hope this makes sense, lol. Thanks all!

I don't know much about scripting. However, it seems to me that most of us do it a lot. We just edit. It seems like that is what Mason is doing, my instinct tells me it is a good thing. I would take that anyday. Congratulations to him.

Concernedpa.

The fact that he's using it purposefully and adding his own words sounds like a positive development to me! The fact that he introduces the topic "Thats monster House" is great!   He
only has to change that to " In Monster House _____ says Hey DJ    and go
from there. If you know what I mean.

The next step , should he say it to someone else is to teach him to introduce
the topic first. " Have you seen Monster House"   than he can go through his
dialog.

My son also scripts at times and this is what we have been doing. It took us
such a long time for him to introduce the topic though. Your Mason is
already doing that so that is great. He is commenting and using his scripts
in the appropriate ways. While you know he is scripting, other people will
not know.Payne started out repeating, then scripting with a purpose - now he talks unprompted. This is WONDERFUL news.

Thanks guys!!

Julie it's so funny you say that about the files. Mason does this quick little pause right before he is ready to say something...sometimes it's so short you barely notice it, but yes!! It's almost like he is going through all the files in his brain looking for the right one, lol.

And Mary, I know what you mean. My Mom is a big one to point out the things she see's him 'reinacting.' Especially his play. I will take what I can get in regards to that, because he doesn't do it often, but what little pretend play he has is all taught. And it's the same way everytime. But my Mom is always saying things, like "well when he came over today he played tea party with me." I've tried explaining that I taught him that and if you notice it's always the same way. But to her it's still playing. That's when I get the remarks "well he doesn't have real autism, just some symptoms." [QUOTE=emerald_521]

That's when I get the remarks "well he doesn't have real autism, just some symptoms."

[/QUOTE]

I HATE THAT! Oh, he's doing fine now...he'll grow out of this! My grandma is CONSTANTLY saying that to me. He's doing better...he's growing out of it. UGH! Right there with you on that one!

I just had to chuckle Jana! Yes Mason and Morgan sound so much alike! UGH that darn head on commercial...what was even worse was when they changed it to "Head I think your commercial is stupid, but I love you product." Now he is hooked on cookie crisp, lol.

I have made Mason a social story about make believe life and real life. I was always so afraid that if he is talking the movie, he might try to act out the movie! He has yet to do any of that, but I don't think he quite comprehends when I tell him the spongebob etc aren't real. He gives me this look, like he can't believe I would say such a horrible thing.

Ali is HUGE on scripting and echolalia! However, my mom who watches her all day did not believe me when I told her about how bad she is with using lines from tv and movies. She knew she recited commercials but was not aware how big Ali is on using the tv/movie words appropriately-encompasing prob. 70% of her language. The thing is she is so good at fitting things she has heard into answers and conversation. I think I notice it more than my mom because I watch a lot of what she watches...my mom just puts a dvd into Ali's personal dvd player and forgets about it. I realized with individual words that she does this too. She says a sentence with a big vocab. word and uses the word appropriately but when I ask her what the word means, she has no idea. Anyway, Ali does this scripting EVERY DAY.

I'd say this is 70% of my kiddos speech as well. He can launch into a full 15 minute Spongebob episode ... does all the lines. Sometimes he will say something and I don't have a clue where it came from, but my 8 year old will tell me.

I wonder how our kiddos would do if TV was eliminated or cut way down. My son gets 1 - 2 hours a day of shows. My son does a fair amount of scripting, but also has functional some language. Some argue that TV has helped develop speech and language. I wonder where the speech therapists come down on TV?Ny Mommy of 3, yes I can relate.

My son used to say "Tarter sauce" when things went wrong for the longest
time. If you watched Sponge Bob, you knew exactly what he meant[QUOTE=emerald_521]

Now he is hooked on cookie crisp, lol.

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OMG! same here, I was amazed when we went to the store and he asked for cookie crisp, but he pronounced it cookie crist, it was still cute, and he was lucky that it was on sale that week. He keeps saying "whats going on with the honey?" i think its from another ceral commercial.

Yes, scripting does get put into "normal" conversation around here all the time. with Nick, he will say "thats from _____" and ask questions about what it is from.