echolalia and other problems

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We have a very happy but eccentric almost-4-year-old Asperger son. We seemed to have missed out on the tantrums, but he tends to turn disapproval back on himself. So if we say eg. "Don't pull kitty's ears, it hurts her" he will say:"Mommy, pull my ears." Also if someone else gets attention eg: if I say "Poor Nana, she has a bad headache, let her sleep." he will go lie down and tell everyone he has a bad headache. No-one is allowed to be special except him. Also repeats phrases he hears us say with no indication or possibility he that he knows what he is saying. He has exceptionally acute hearing and will repeat bit of conversations you are having in another room, even on the phone. Interrupts conversations all the time and then if you tell him off he repeats everything you are saying and the replies of the other person aswell!

This sounds very common for a young aspie. I would not really do anything to "correct it". Especially the social mimicry. Children with AS have a very hard time with understanding Theory of Mind, (what other people maybe thinking or feeling). Usually they translate their feelings, or knowledge onto others. So if they don't have a headache, they can't understand that Nana does and they need to be quiet. If they like pulling the cats ears, they can't understand that the cat may have different opinions about the activity. But these are just my feelings on it. If you think he does not "understand" what he is repeating, maybe sometimes you can try to explain it a bit to him. My son at 5 used to do this a lot, most of the time I let him run with it, except if it was highly inappropreate. One example is he used to run around saying "stinky stocky underware" because he heard another kid say it when he was playing over at his house. It took "forever" to get him to stop blurting that out, and part of it was telling him "you are talking about messy used underware, it is not appropreate and you need to stop". Situations like this are some that "need" intervention in my opinion.

A classic example is Sally and Anne, usually done as a puppet show. Sally has a marble. Anne Does not. Sally loves her new marble, and puts it away in a special box before she goes out to play. Aftershe leaves, Anne takes the marble and places it in a different box. Sally comes back, "where is the marble?" A 4 year old with good Theory of mind will know that Sally will look in her box where she left it, and understand she can't know that Anne moved it. A child without good theory of mind will suggest that she knows it is in Annes Box! They can't understand that she has no way of knowing that!

My son repeats a lot of things he says. He is 12. He is now aware that he "does this" at times and often I will tell him he is doing it and see if I can get him to tone it out. Usually he does it more on purpose to "get at me" but choses better times. The last two "lines" he had going in the last 6 months where "why is the rum always gone?" He would say this over and over with no real context to what we where doing (Pirates of the Carabbiane sp?) And "Vodka martini shaken not stirred" (James bond) whenever he had to ask for a drink or tell me what he wanted to drink.

Also I would not count on having missed the "tantrums" yet, as he gets older and has more social functions to get through, they may rear their ugly head. I think it is a positive sign that he has not really had any yet, probably indicates that he does not suffer much from sensory intigration in that the environment is not constantly "triggering" tantrums.