Echolalia

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I'm finding that a lot of the stuff I'd written off about myself re: AS I'd misunderstood. Example:

Every now and someone says something that sets something off in my brain and I repeat it. (Someone might say an usual phrase or say it in an unusual way and I just have to "try it out".) I'm just now beginning to suspect this must be echolalia, which I'd never thought before since a) I'd always thought it was only natural I repeat something that interests me (as opposed to randomly repeating something you hear for no reason), and b) I don't do it in front of other people. However, I have a feeling most people don't do this. What are everyone else's experiences? How does this manifest with you all?

Last edited by phenomenon on 11 Apr 2007, 12:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

With as much as I hate the strange things my old man says at random... I find myself repeating him when I'm alone.


I can't block him out when he's talking, and then when I'd rather forget what he's saying... I say it myself.

This was one of the biggest cues for me to realize that I had AS. Most times I remark to myself that if I was on some lifelong reality show like the Truman show I'd come off as quite weird to NT's: whenever I'm watching tv or something by myself and someone says something really funny or weird I just have to repeat it and laugh about it over and over. When I just hear wierd or interesting things being said I have to repeat them...

..so ya

It's echolalia (for those of you who want to look it up on wikipedia) and I do it. I also think NT's do it, though, too. It's common for people to "have a song stuck in their head".

In addition to songs, I'll do it to a random word that I heard, for a day or so. I think to me it's a mental calming thing - like a mental stim.

Oh god do I do that. I even repeat stuff I just said.

I do this too - with sounds / noises that intereste me as well as words. I did it a lot when I was younger, and it was how I communicated for a while before I realised that it wasn't actually the 'conventional' way to communicate.

From what I've read it's pretty common with ASDs.

I don't do it around others much - but only because I have to make a huge effort to be self-conscious otherwise I would do it without realising!

When I am stressed or upset, I will repeat a word or a few words or numbers over and over in my mind, sometimes even out loud.

this is considered weird?? me and my friends do it. i rem 1 time getting a drive somewhere w/ a cpl friends we spent the whole time quoting funny clever quotes off movies.

Echolalia is one of my stims- when I'm not really attentive when someone is talking to me, I just start repeating what they said over and over until I have enough attention to answer them. Luckily I mostly use this in front of my mom which doesn't find it worrying because I've done it since I was a kid... she just finds it annoying lol. I once accidentally repeated someone in the public and everybody started staring, so it's definitely not what most people do.

I never heard of echolalia up until recently I looked on it as a form of stuttering like I repeat the same phrases. The first phrase is deliberate; the one or more is just involuntary reflexes of repeating usually the last three words repeatedly.

Here is an example: "should I close this window, close this window?" or "I think I will edit this again, edit this again, edit this again". Sometimes I may even echo phrases of other people. like if a person asks me to "close the door" I echo the same words back to them as an involutary reflex.

I still also stutter when I am under stress by dragging on the consanants like ssssssssso

I talk back to my cats when they meow, imitating their vocalizations.

I can recall how when was a child whereabouts, I'd often repeat what others said, not merely in reepeating format but, where it would seem as, their own voice was being echoed.Anyways, I rarely do such today yet, I've learned being autistic not something bad just a different way of osberving & reacting to the world from my own point of view.

Professor X

why?
i dont even talk to my dogs.

I don't think this is considered weird at all, quoting funny lines off movies or tv shows to each other. Maybe if you do it really excessively (quoting the same line over and over and over again) while nobody else finds it funny (anymore). Then again, if one finds it really funny, why not.
My brother and I quote funny lines off "Scrubs" for example to each other all of the time (and it's usually always the same ones too, such as Dr. Molly Clock's "chicken salad song" if anyone knows/remembers that ).
I sometimes have it with movies etc. though that a quote gets stuck in my head which isn't funny or clever or really outstanding in any way at all, but somehow I like it, the way it was being said or just the words or, I really don't know what it is. I don't feel like quoting it out loud again and again then but it's playing in my head again and again, like "mental echolalia". I then usually feel like watching the whole movie again (and again and again..., ok that IS somewhat weird I guess ) just in order to hear that particular quote.

I have to read papers and then write for grad school. I have found myself in the odd position of writing something, and then thinking "Did I make that up or did I read that whole sentence somewhere?". It's frustrating to not know if I'm echoing somebody else or not.

Recently while driving long distance, my nephew and I got into a 'duelling Terry-Thomas' routine that was enormously therapeutic, and hilarious. We kept repeating what the other one had said, and adding a bit until we were near hysteria. "I say"