Words stuck in your head- perservation/echolalia?

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I show quite a lot of perseverative behaviour based on repeating words.

There are others, but the one that recurs over and over again is where I said to a lady "I like your skirt", and she looked down, up, smiled and said "Thank you!"

So I speak the words AND act out the actions of both of us. This dialogue has stuck in my mind for some reason. It's a strange one, especially as it was months ago. I realise it is a definite perseverative behaviour.

I've been stirring the pot a little, with the first verse of the rock song, "Spirit In The Sky" since I've gone to the Cheap Movies to see "Ice Age 2". I was singing,

Going up to the Bus in the Sky
That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
I'm gonna go to the Bus that's the best

The reasoning behind this is that the Squirrle in the movie had a Near Death Experience and he was headed towards this giant golden Acorn.

I see myself running to a golden Routemaster, when I die and go to Heaven.

Now I have these made-up words in my Head.

Ohmygawd, I LOVE the sabretoothed squirrel. It's like my alter ego!

i often find it tremendously difficult to stop saying words which sound funny, and they're not only the usual "poo", "fart" etc. it can be words like "was" or made up silly things like "wooter".

I have this problem on a nearly constant basis, but I don't think its echolalia. I don't repeat the words aloud, and it's usually not words but rather thoughts. And I believe it's due to anxiety or tension. It is usually things that truly strike my interest, related to my passions or whatever, or things that bother me in some way or another. If I get criticized by someone else, I can't get the thought out of my mind. I sometimes remember things that happened years ago, and I start dwelling on it. It can get so bad, that it keeps me up at night. It sometimes drives my passions and interests as well.

- Ray M -

Sometimes I repeat phrases immediately after someone says it, just as loud as they did. That got awkward, so now when I catch myself I add something to the end of the phrase to make it sound like I'm agreeing with them. Usually I only repeat words and phrases in my head.

I get words stuck in my head from time to time. Usually it is because they sound nice...it's far more common that I get stuck on a song though (whoever mentioned the white stripes, I have that song stuck in my head right now and it will keep me awake tonight unless I go and put my walkman on )
I have trouble processing what people say sometimes too. As a kid I used to say "pardon?" a lot when people were talking and I remember people seemed to find it really irritating. I mean I've never been deaf so I now conclude that I did it to enable me to get processing time. It would frequently take a while to work out the meaning of what had just been said to me.

Some professionals (I noticed Francesca Happé is one example) call this phenomenon 'parroting'. A good, useful term because it's not just the words that are replicated, it's often the tone of voice and intonation as well.

I've found myself 'parroting' a lot when being served in shops and saying "Thank you" to cashiers. My parroting is in the tone of voice and intonation I use.

You will see that compliments I give ladies about their clothes, and their reactions, are a major source of my parroting. Some time ago I said to one lady:

Me: I like your suit!
Lady: Thank you!
Me: Er, you look good in it!
Lady: Thank you!

Well, the second time she said "Thank you" it was in a different tone. Let's try to explain: the emphasis was on the "you", the "you" was drawn out, sort of slurred, and she said "Thank you" very melodiously. And that's how I've said "Thank you" to cashiers.

As we Aspies tend to lack a genuine ability to impersonate others, to play, to pretend and all that stuff, we often 'parrot' other people like that instead.

The experience described in the first post happens to me quite frequently.
Often, random words or phrases repeatedly pop up in my head. Sometimes, I can remember where I saw the word or phrase, but often I have absolutely no idea where it came from.

Here's a few of the words of the phrases that have gotten stuck in my head:
simulacrum
Lactobacillus acidophilus - from a dietary supplement bottle I saw at a pharmacy
pejorative
phagocyte - from a textbook
capitulation
necrosis
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
insipid - from a list of vocabulary words
blandiloquent - a word of the day on some dictionary website
xylitol
"in human gore imbued" - from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe
"such is the breath of kings" - from Shakespeare's Richard II
modus operandi
habeas corpus
cytoplasm
esprit de corps
Umayyad
Aquitaine
preposterous
Copernicus
pernicious
Cicero
escribir - from Spanish class
escritorio - same as above
el elefante
ad infinitum
mirabile dictu - from a book
deus ex machina - from reading the dictionary
glasnost
Blitzkrieg

Perhaps there is some kind of pattern. A disproportiante number of them are Latin (or other foreign) phrases or terms with Latin roots. Perhaps there are patterns of prosody or perhaps it is because they sound strange or interesting.

Also, I think getting words stuck in one's head is may be a phenomenon related to Asperger's syndrome, but getting songs stuck is most likely a widespread occurence in the general population.

Thanks alot Scoots, now I've got baba ganoush stuck in my head.

I'll repeat some phrase in my head, blurt it out once during a conversation and go back to repeating it in my head a few more times. Such fun. It makes me appear compulsive, but I just can't help it. Saying the word or phrase that's plauging me helps me to release it. But it only seems to work if someone hears it. I also have the problem where I ask people to repeat themselves because I can't translate them in my head fast enough.

Perseverating - I only found out the definition for that yesterday and let me tell you, that is exactly what I do. I just can't ever quit. I've had people tell me to stop talking about something because I stick with it all night long. People get angry about it and I'm always surprised. It makes conversation even more difficult because I have to consiously make sure I've stopped talking about the thing that I've already talked about and listen to everyone else. I also have to try to fill in the blanks when I miss things and hang on to whatever everybody is saying and know what they're talking about and how to respond appropriately. I also have to remember not to stim (I run my fingernails under each other and mess with my cuticles...so sexy let me tell you) and then try to figure out what repetitive movement might be taking the place of my usual stim. At this point, I have lost complete track of the conversation and I'm exhausted. Of all the things, this is the worst. I just can never get in that witty comeback. But I usually come up with it the next day.

It seems that my AS exhibits abilities known primarily to Autism. Though my Ecolialia is more in my head than anything; I am also good with impersonating people, such as people I see at school, or at church.

I imitate people also. I really can't help it, but sometimes if I try to mimic their expression or body language, I can understand what they're trying to tell me. Anybody who does anything slightly out of the ordinary with their faces and body, I have to do it...almost immediately. I've been a little better about it lately, but I have a harder time trying to tell what the person is thinking/feeling. I guess I have to impersonate the person to get it.

I get this too.

Sometimes I'll repeat a word over and over until it sounds foreign or wierd to me.

For example, I'll think of "kitchen". Then I think, where did that word come from? Why does it sound like that... kit chen. What a wierd word. Eventually the word will sound alien to me.

I went to a non-Asperger's forum and asked a question about words getting stuck in one's head. It actually seems that this happens to neurotypicals all the time.