New with question about echolalia... is this or isn't this?

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I'm new. I'm having my 15 yr old girl evaluated for AS. I have asked the question before and two different evaluators felt she did not have AS (several years ago). One because her eye contact is too good, and the other because she really seems to love to travel. I could write a lengthy post about all the reasons she may or may not have AS. I go back and forth myself, but ultimately AS is the only thing that could explain everything, so here we are revisiting again.

I wish I could remember her early toddler years better re: echolalia. She was prodigiously verbal but it is possible she was echolalic and because she was SO young for the amount of words she was using we didn't really notice. (seems likely in retrospect)

But to my question: she has this habit of repeating what I say. I mostly see this with her younger sibs. (but maybe this is just because that's who I'm always with) For example, I will say, "I need you guys to please pick up the racing set before dinner" and then she will turn and repeat "pick up the racing set before dinner" (minus the I need part, sometimes she will add "mom needs us to"). It's not limited to instructions... I could say, 'guess what, I found chocolate whatever at the store today" and she would turn to someone else and say 'mom found chocolate whatever at the store today'...even though the person is 2 feet from me when I was speaking. I know she's doing this at least some at school, because I have heard people tell her irritatedly "we know!" etc. We make jokes sometimes about the Sigourney Weaver character in Galaxy Quest... whose sole job it was to repeat what the computer said.

Is this some form of echolalia? I have always viewed this as a time buying strategy for her, as she is (though brilliant) a very slow processor. It's almost like she's saying it to them as a means of telling herself or something.

Honestly it is irritating to others and I do think she kind of knows it but she can't stop doing it.



So, echolalia... what do you think?

Neither eye contact nor travel are reasons to dismiss a possibility of ASD
And yes, what you are describing is Echololia.

Echololia is not exclusive to ASD.
What else makes you think it's ASD?

Ps- Welcome to WrongPlanet.

---
"I have one job on this lousy ship. It's stupid, but I'm going to do it!"

That is what my 5 yr old son did a lot when he was between 2 and 4. It has diminished some, but he will still do it sporadically. I believe it is echolalia that you are describing. My son is diagnosed as PDD-NOS/possible Asperger's. He too had tons of words at a young age, but what we realized was that he was not using them to actually communicate back and forth with us. I think you are right about buying time. I believe I read that in a book on Asperger's. That by repeating it back, that gives them more time to process what they are going to say.
My son does delayed echolalia, where he repeats what he has heard others say during the day or at other times.


As far as the eye contact.....That was one of the things that made me think that my son could not be on the spectrum was that he has always even from birth, made good eye contact. And my son LOVES going new places and loves going on long road trips in the car. So, I would not let that stop you from pursuing the diagnosis if there are other concerns.

Good luck and Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Ah, I know that uncomfortable trek back and forth so well. I hope you will find some answers now. The fact that it keeps nagging at you kind of tells me that something is going on. Also, as reasons she "can't have it", those are simply full of crap. (Come to think of it, the entire "s/he does this, so can't have an ASD" scenario is full of crap. That is *not* how a diagnosis is made!)

To answer your question, it certainly does sound like echolalia. I'm just guessing here, but perhaps it helps her process what she hears. Or she might do it as a way of having something to contribute to a conversation when she doesn't know what to say. Again, just guessing.

Thank you all.

More on why we are thinking AS, though I was skipping this in the interest of brevity.... I'll try for the short version:

Main reason I keep coming back to AS is social isolation. This is a child who has not had a real friend in years and years. Last real friend was an AS boy about 8 years ago. We saw the social isolation but there have always been other possible explanations. I.e. we moved a couple times and she is extremely gifted.... in the younger years it was easy to see she had no common interests with age peers.

There are other little things. She's a good student but teachers say she asks too many questions, makes tangential comments and includes far too much detail. Sometimes she seems to have no idea which details are relevant. (this is improving with age) Little misunderstandings every year with teachers..she's spacey or 'not respectful enough' or she needs to 'learn to work with others.' She always thinks people did things on purpose when they didn't. She has a strong preference for knowing ahead of time what will happen..never a tantrum thrower, but has definite difficulty with changes in plans. Travel fits here- she can travel and be in unfamiliar places- she loves the stimulation of it, in fact, but she needs to know as many specifics as possible in advance. Need for specificity is high in most areas and she has a tendency to be literal. She has a tendency toward anxiety - generally related to her own health and safety..she needs excessive reassurance there and is excessively careful about self care routines (almost OCD at times).

All of that has always been there. We have always thought of her as Aspie-ish but maybe just not quite... But here we are at 15. She's in an activity at school with nice, studious, smart girls with similar interests and they don't like her. I thought it was going ok but attended a function in spring where I could see that she is still somehow like an alien in their midst. She also recently admitted she could often not tell if I was joking or not. She used to laugh - fakish sounding sometimes, but it was always so, so we just thought it was her - but now she just asks. She said she has no idea ever with people she knows less well. I went back to looking at AS after all that.

I have recently done a lot more in depth reading on AS. I think many of the signs can be more subtle than I initially thought. If AS is the answer, then she is a more subtle case than the 2 boys I have met, but I begin to see that it may still fit. She can be a little flat, a little aloof, a little less responsive or emotive than one might expect. But it's not immediately obvious..takes a bit to spot it. We're all introverts so it doesn't seem too out of the ordinary in our house. Honestly, I often think in spite of all the above that she is just too functional to truly have AS. (But, on the other hand, there is a long history of people thinking she's somehow off, so maybe I am just blind.)

Echolalia is something I only just considered. I had always thought of echolalia as essentially comprehensionless repetitions. But if what I described can be echolalia, then add a point toward AS I guess.

That is the short version. LOL

I think you are doing the right thing in having her evaluated. Even if they do not conclude that it is AS, she might start to learn more about herself through the evaluation process. And maybe she is just very mild. It will be ok if she is, but together, maybe you will be more aware of why things are happening the way they are. Maybe she can start working on learning better strategies at communicating, and things will be easier for her down the line.

Also, I have read that many times AS can present different ways in girls than boys. Especially since it is more acceptable for girls to be quiet or shy.

Or possibly an auditory processing disorder.

Stick around petrel. Sounds to me like you belong here.

I'm going to say these are strong indicators.
Print out your own post and take it to the doctor with you so you don't forget to mention any of those things. Especially the teachers' opinions: Doctors HATE self or parental diagnosers, and are more likely to blow you off. They're more prone to listen if you have some input from people who interact with kids professionally.

Sometimes I wonder where these "experts" come from...sigh...

Anyway, I think it might be. My son is 9 now, but when he was between 5-8 or so, everything we said he repeated. Everything he heard, ie. movies, songs, etc...he repeated. If we said "you want chicken or pizza", he would say "you want chicken or pizza". BUT as he has gotten older, I have noticed that he does not repeat as much...NOT OUT LOUD...haha...I have caught him many times when I say something "whispering to himself" exactly what I just said. I know for many years we would tell him not to repeat...I felt bad, but sometimes it truly wore us all out...anyway, so I don't know if it's age or if it's the fact that he knows it's a bit strange to repeat things...so he just whispers it to himself now.

That sounds almost exactly like my daughter, high vocabulary and all.