How do you deal with your kiddo repeating movie scripts, etc

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Here's my issue...kiddo, well, he learns every darn movie script there is...so, here are some examples of the things he says while we are out at the store...


1. DAD I DON"T WANT TO EAT GARBAGE! (Ratatouille???)
2. DON"T KILL ME (either Ratatouille or Bee Movie)
3. YOU'RE A DRAG QUEEN (Bee Movie?)

Ah, yes, as people turn around, while I'm trying to tell him to "shush"...hmmm...and of course, where we live, well, not everyone speaks english...so it's somewhat ignored...but I'm terrified of being in the US, at some store and him starting this...I have a feeling someone will be calling the cops or CPS on me!! ! help!

Last edited by whatamess on 07 Apr 2008, 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

I would concider it charming!

It was great when it replaced the echolalia and the gibberish (3-5) but became problematic at 6-7 when other people either didn't understand what he was saying (and assumed the worst) or assumed he knew what he was saying when he didn't.
For example, he was talking about "Violet" and "Dash" in a semi-coherent babble on the school bus when he was in preschool. He was barely verbal at the time and the bus driver thought he said "violence" and "death". Of course, there was no context to these words and the bus driver seemed to be looking for trouble.
Another time, Pop was getting provoked and some school staff told him something about getting in trouble. He answered, "We'll see about that!" Well, he repeated it a lot and had no idea what it meant. He just knew it was an answer when you're defending yourself.

To the untrained (or poorly trained) ear, scripting can fool the listener that the child fully understands what they are saying. They get the tone correct and it seems like the proper context. Going by script, an autistic child with poor receptive language skills can be deemed "sophisticated" and "highly verbal". The arguments for visual aides and accomodations can be really difficult.

For the past year, Pop has been asking what stuff means and seems to have a good ear for "expressions". He can sniff out an idiom and ask about it before entering it into his lexicon. One thing that helps is his obsession for subtitles!

who needs a vcr/recorder when you have an aspie kid.

I get all the actions to lol.

Replaying tv,movies,video games etc is probably about 80% of what J talks about. Does he understand what he is repeating.? I'm sure he doesn't understand all of it. He too is asking what lots of things mean now.

Oh, I forgot the one that's really gotten people's attention???

HEY, WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOIN'...(I think that's from a Cars video game...hmmm)

So yes, people will walk by him and by mistake bump into him and that will be his response...We're always next to him, but imagine having to explain to people ...blah, blah...he didn't mean it, he has autism, blah, blah...not good, so we just kind of say sorry and move on...

When you're in public, you could instantly say, "What movie is that from?" and that will clue in the bystander.
Echolalia is great! He is learning the sentences he will later re-arrange to make conversation when he is an adult. When you have a child who never did get that far and at age 30 still sounds like the wookie in Star Wars, repeating movie scripts seems wonderful. I have two NT kids that can repeat verbatim the movies Princess Bride and UHF.

My parents thought it was cute and funny when I did it!

I imagine its similar to the same concept that enables me to use words I don't know the meaning of in my research papers.

I'll write whatever comes to mind, maybe writing how someone is impecunious, then I'll think for a minute and be like "What does impecunious mean? I don't have the slightest idea" But when i look it up in the dictionary the context is perfect for how I just used it

triangular trees- how do you do that? My 9 year old does stuff like that. Uses words and can read words that no other 9 year old I know would use, they always appear to be used in context, however he will then ask me at a later stage "what does so and so mean".

Our 9-yr-old is currently obsessed with the stand-up routine of Bill Cosby, "Himself." He can repeat the entire routine. Even the bits about drinking too much, and drugs (thankfully Mr Cosby does not glorify either). He doesn't understand a lot of it, but he thinks Mr Cosby is hilarious with his facial expressions and silly voices, and he can repeat it all verbatim. I've told him he's not to do the bit about drinking and drugs at school or to his friends (although he probably already has) because it's "inapropriate" (our favorite word for things he shouldn't do in public).

He also loves to listen to sports announcers. The drama in their voice, the tension, the emotion, the excitement - he loves everything about it. He loves statistics, and can tell you who won the Superbowl on a given year decades before he was born (and who they played against).

Sometimes, it's entertaining and funny and amazing.

Sometimes, it drives me INSANE.

But I did the exact same thing when I was a kid, with Steve Martin and Robin Williams. I could memorize my favorite movies (remember when if you wanted to see a film more than once, you had to see it at the theater, and they would re-release movies from time to time?). So I saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark" like 20 times in the theater, and if I was having trouble falling asleep, I could close my eyes and replay the entire movie in my head, word for word. I actually owned the screenplay at one time, with story boards and everything.

As a teenager, I would keep my friends (or anyone handy) in stitches, reciting entire stand-up routines verbatim.

I've had friends say "Why have every episode of the Chappelle show on DVD when you can recite it from memory"

I've enjoyed reading all this ... it's wierd, because it's the one thing my son doesn't do. Everything with him is self-generated. He makes up his own one-liners, and thinks they are very cool, lol.

I honestly have to say that I don't see a problem, but I'm biased. I live my life in about 50% rote phrases. LOL! I am constantly quoting movies, music, etc. My hubby does it too and so does our AS DD. I live my life to a soundtrack in my head as well and constantly have songs popping in and out depending on what is said, what I see, etc.

I do know that it drives my sisters nuts and my mother was driven nuts by my father doing it all the time.

I'm like this too and many coworkers/friends have commented on my "eccentric" way of speaking/thinking many times over the years. Maybe I do this because I learned so much of what I think I know about human interaction and humor and sarcasm and timing and all sorts of things by watching television, and comedians, and movies.

I remember being mystified when, in elementary school, I'd use some phrase that a character in some tv show the previous evening had used and gotten great applause and laughter - and when I used it in 'real life' I ended up incredibly offending or even angering everyone around me. That still happens to me, from time to time. I just turned 38.

My AS husband and I have many "conversations" that are essentially nothing but pop culture references, bits we've enjoyed from books, movies, and tv shows - all these little "inside jokes" that hardly anyone but the two of us would understand or perceive the context. We'll end up totally cracking each other up, and neither of us has uttered an original syllable!

We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other.

[quoteMy AS husband and I have many "conversations" that are essentially nothing but pop culture references, bits we've enjoyed from books, movies, and tv shows - all these little "inside jokes" that hardly anyone but the two of us would understand or perceive the context. We'll end up totally cracking each other up, and neither of us has uttered an original syllable!

We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other.[/quote]

DITTO! LOL! We are the same way! It drove my sister absolutely NUTS when she lived with us. She thinks we're absolutely crazy. LOL!

I repeat lines from my favorite movies on occasion. Since many people don't watch the same movies I do, I can do it without anyone knowing it.