Non-verbal autistics...

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My brother is totally non-verbal. This is partially by choice, maybe, but he's always had a lot of difficulty with communicating. He can read and understand what others say of course... But the most he will say [at this point] is a word or two at a time--and only if you're lucky or if you're really hassling him. And still it's very slow, quiet and monotone. He's 17.
When he was younger [younger than 12] he was a lot more verbal but still never spoke normally. Mostly he just made lots and lots of little noises, when he was involved in something and/or happy. And he'd say "No" quite a bit, and if you asked him a question, he'd repeat the last few words sort of.

It's extremely difficult.. Over the fast few years he's become silent and more nervous. It's a real challenge trying to figure out how he's feeling, what he wants to do and most of all, what he wants to eat. Most of the time he doesn't want to be bothered and will simply close his eyes, turn away or leave if you hang around him/look at him too much.

I have to rely on his subtle body language for the most part... I understand him more than my parents do and my mom has a habit of coddling him and making him nervous.

I'm like this a fair amount, usually when asked questions, and the auditory/language processing is too much for me. I was dx'd Asperger's when I was 10, mainly because nobody recognized echolalia for what it was, and thought that when my speech shut down that I was "refusing to speak".

I think they thought of this, because I had a large vocabulary, though I didn't understand the meanings of a lot of the words I used. Also, my dad is also autistic, so he didn't see my autistic behavior as unusual at all, and it wasn't until the school pointed it out and evaluated me, that they figured it out. Unfortunately, many people think that if you can speak some of the time that you should be able to speak all of the time, and think of it as all-or-nothing.

It's like, people who interact with me when my speech is inconsistent (as in mostly echolalic, random noises, that sort of thing), they don't understand how I didn't have a speech delay. I think there may have been slight delays, but I started with single words at age one, just that I was still primarily, perhaps entirely, echolalic by age three, and not until age 3.5 - 4 that I developed non-echolalic speech more. Even then, my auditory processing was off, so I did a lot more nodding, pointing, and saying a random word and hoping I'd get what I want. I still use these strategies, though I have a lot more expressive and receptive language than I did then.

When I was like 2 and 3, echolalia was pretty much like non-functional and quoting from TV, such as Batman movies, Disney movies, and documentaries. By age 12 I used echolalia about 50%, though a lot of the time it was related to the situation, at least peripherally, though my dad is the only one usually who understands what I mean from it.

(I think most other people are thrown by the quoting and repetition, that they don't get to the point of looking for meaning - they just think it's something random and off-the-wall that I do). But, because the other 50% often used advanced vocabulary, and at times complex grammatical structure, while it was pre-scripted and rehearsed a lot, nobody looked to consider it part of a pathology or anything.

I still use a fair amount of echolalia, though mostly it's at the end of the day, or when I'm stressed, or if I'm having difficulty processing auditory signals. In the last case, it's like a way to tell my parents that "Yes, I am indeed not trying to ignore you, but I am unable to answer your question right now."

I have a really weird problem with typing. My sentences come out in jumbled messes that leaves spell-check to exhaust its ability. There's also something about paying attention to words on a screen that messes me up; I often ignore what people say or am oblivious to important things. But when it comes to writing or speech I'm fine. How curious.