Echolalia can sound like alot of things. It is officially defined as : Involuntary parrotlike repetition of a word or sentence just spoken by another person. But that is a one dimensional definition and does not really help you visualize it. And sometimes its not one word or one setence; it might be the entire text of a children’s book or entire passages from movies. Its also not always immediate. For Pookie, echolalia comes out in a few different forms.

1. random phrases. He often asks me “did you see the butterfly mailbox?” I do not know where that comes from. But each time he does it, he makes a point of *asking* me, with eye contact and he seems to care what my answer is. So I answer every time.

2. repetition of words/phrases just said. For example, if I ask him, “do you want some milk?” He might answer “do you want milk?”

3. echolalia for fun. Pookie sings almost constantly. Its one of the perks we get out of this whole thing. His singing is actually quite good and very entertaining. He knows entire songs. He will make up noises to fill in for the instrumental parts. Luckily, his musical repertoire is pretty diverse. Here’s what’s on his internal iPod right now:

• I Love my Lips- by Larry the Cucumber, of Veggie Tales fame
• Zoot Suit Riot- by Cherry Poppin’ Daddies
• Mommy and Me- Theme song from the DVD ( I will admit that we have heard this one a few too many times lately)
• Little Mr. Roo- by Carly Simon, from the the Pooh’s Heffalump Movie soundtrack
• Ain’t That a Shame- by Fats Domino
• There was a Farmer who had a dog, and B-I-N-G-O was his Name-o, a classic
• I Gotta Be Clean- by Sesame Street
• Movin’ Right Along- by the Muppets
• Nobody Loves You like Your M-O-Double M-Y, by John Lithgow
• Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay, a classic
• Hello, My Name is Joe, by Stephen Fite

4. Angry echolalia. When Pookie does not know how to better express himself, he uses angry echolalia. This week, we upped the ante on the poop-training. Now, if he poops in the potty, he gets a Kit Kat stick. He understands, believe me. He wants those Kit Kats. But poop is a fickle thing, you can’t just make it happen. So, sometimes he walks around the house howling “first poop, then Kit Kat treat!” We know that is his way of complaining about the situation. He does this kind of thing in other situations and seems to be his way of saying “Its not fair!” or “Out damn poopie, out!”

BAGD also wrote on this topic, as part of his Autism series. You should also go read that post.

Pookie’s echolalia is significant, but tolerable. It makes us laugh and is sometimes entertaining. The bottom line is that you cannot stop echolalia, but you can divert it into proper language. PECS cards and sign language help. But, if you try to make someone with echolalia be quiet, it will come out harder and faster. Its involuntary. I won’t go into how to divert it into proper language, because that would take a long time to explain and I am not qualified to give real advice on it. BAGD and I are hacks, we feel our way through this autism thing, focusing on what works for Pookie. We never know if what we do would work for someone else, but we offer it as another idea. My best advice is : ask a special ed teacher or behavior therapist how to use PECS or return language to break into the echolalia.