Echolalia within Children with Autism

Echolalia within Children with Autism

Crystal Mitchell

For decades scholars have researched the significance of echolalia or repetition of speech within children with autism. Over the years, just as the understanding and classification of autism has changed, so has the meaning of the presence of echolalia and what that entails in light of communicative ability. This paper will investigate key scholars and their thoughts surrounding children with autism who express echolalia and whether or not they believe it serves as proof of real language ability within those adolescents. Through the investigation of ethnographies and various research studies of discourse analyses by these key scholars, this paper will highlight various findings and advancements in autism studies and language development thus leading to various changes in beliefs over the years. Audiences will recognize a drastic change in ideas, as they navigate from the earlier work of Fay (1969) which showcased echolalia as insignificant to the development of language, to beliefs from scholars like Sterponi (2014) whose later historical findings place echolalia as potential evidence of language ability. In this journey through history, the results following the various research have been key in identifying next steps that continue to lead future scholars towards more findings on this path of discovery of language ability.