Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-ggg9q Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-08T23:37:09.568Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rethinking echolalia: repetition as interactional resource in the communication of a child with autism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2013

LAURA STERPONI  and
JENNIFER SHANKEY
LAURA STERPONI*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
JENNIFER SHANKEY
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
*
Address for correspondence: Laura Sterponi, University of California, Berkeley – Graduate School of Education, 5643 Tolman Hall, Berkeley, California 94720, United States. e-mail: sterponi@berkeley.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Echolalia is a pervasive phenomenon in verbal children with autism, traditionally conceived of as an automatic behavior with no communicative function. However, recently it has been shown that echoes may serve interactional goals. This article, which presents a case study of a six-year-old child with autism, examines how social interaction organizes autism echolalia and how repetitive speech responds to discernible interactional trajectories. Using linguistic, discourse, and acoustic analyses, we demonstrate that the child is able to mobilize echolalia to mark different stances, through the segmental and suprasegmental modulation of echoes. We offer an interpretive framework that deepens our understanding of the complex interactions that children with autism can engage in by using echoes, and discuss the implications of this perspective for current views of atypical language development in autism.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , March 2014 , pp. 275 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

[*]

Funding for the research described in this article was provided by the University of California Berkeley Committee on Research (CPHS Protocol 2006–2–11, Principal Investigator: Laura Sterponi) and by the Hellman Family Faculty Fund. We are grateful to the Paxter family for their participation and engagement in this study. We also wish to thank Alessandra Fasulo, Kenton de Kirby, and the journal's review and editorial team for their insightful comments and critical advice. A personal note of gratitude to Jonathan Shankey.

References

REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder, 4th edn, text revision. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
Atkinson, M. J. & Heritage, J. (eds.) (1984). Structures of social action: studies in conversation analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bartak, L. & Rutter, M. (1974). The use of personal pronouns by autistic children. Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia 4, 217–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bartak, L., Rutter, M. & Cox, A. (1975). A comparative study of infantile autism and specific developmental receptive language disorder. British Journal of Psychiatry 126, 127–45.Google Scholar
Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. (2007). Praat: doing phonetics by computer (Version 4.5.16) [Computer program].Google Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: the early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cantwell, D., Baker, L. & Rutter, M. (1978). A comparative study of infantile autism and specific developmental receptive language disorder: analysis of syntax and function. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 19, 351–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carluccio, C., Sours, J. A. & Kalb, L. C. (1964). Psychodynamics of echo-reactions. Archives of General Psychiatry 10, 623–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cunningham, M. A. (1968). A comparison of the language of psychotic and non-psychotic children who are mentally retarded. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 9, 229–44.Google Scholar
Dobbison, S., Perkins, M. & Boucher, J. (2003). The interactional significance of formulas in autistic language. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 17, 229–307.Google Scholar
Dyer, C. & Hadden, A. J. (1981). Delayed echolalia in autism: some observations on differences within the term. Child: Care, Health and Development 7, 331–45.Google Scholar
Fay, W. H. (1967). Childhood echolalia: a group study of late abatement. Folia Phonatoria 19, 297–306.Google Scholar
Fay, W. H. (1969). On the basis of autistic echolalia. Journal of Communication Disorders 2, 38–47.Google Scholar
Fay, W. H. (1979). Personal pronouns and the autistic child. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 9, 247–60.Google Scholar
Fay, W. H. (1983). Verbal memory systems and the autistic child. Seminars in Speech and Language 4, 17–26.Google Scholar
Fay, W. H. & Schuler, A. (eds.) (1980). Emerging language in autistic children. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Hopper, R. (1989). Conversation analysis and social psychology as descriptions of interpersonal communication. In Roger, D. & Bull, P. (eds.), Conversation: an interdisciplinary perspective, 49–65. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact. Nervous Child 2, 217–50.Google Scholar
Kjelgaard, M. & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2001). An investigation of language impairment in autism: implications for genetic subgroups. Language and Cognitive Processes 16, 287–308.Google Scholar
Local, J. & Wootton, A. (1995). Interactional and phonetics aspects of immediate echolalia in autism: a case study. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 9, 155–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ninio, A. & Snow, C. (1996). Pragmatic development. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Oshima-Takane, Y. & Benaroya, S. (1989). An alternative view of pronoun errors in autistic children. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 19, 73–85.Google Scholar
Prizant, B. (1983). Language acquisition and communicative behavior in autism: toward an understanding of the ‘whole’ of it. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 48, 296–307.Google Scholar
Prizant, B. & Duchan, J. (1981). The functions of immediate echolalia in autistic children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 46, 241–49.Google Scholar
Prizant, B. & Rydell, P. (1984). Analysis of functions of delayed echolalia in autistic children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 27, 183–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rutter, M. (1978). Diagnosis and definition of childhood autism. Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia 8, 139–61.Google Scholar
Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A. & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50, 696–735.Google Scholar
Schuler, A. (1979). Echolalia: issues and clinical applications. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders XLIV, 411–34.Google Scholar
Shapiro, T., Roberts, A. & Fish, B. (1970). Imitation and echoing in young schizophrenic children. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 9, 548–65.Google Scholar
Stivers, T. (2005). Modified repeats: one method for asserting primary rights from second position. Research on Language and Social Interaction 38, 131–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stribling, P., Rae, J. & Dickerson, P. (2007). Two forms of spoken repetition in a girl with autism. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 42, 427–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tager-Flusberg, H. (2004). Strategies for conducting research on language in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 34, 75–80.Google Scholar
Tager-Flusberg, H. & Calkins, S. (1990). Does imitation facilitate the acquisition of grammar? Evidence from a study of autistic, Down's syndrome and normal children. Journal of Child Language 17, 591–606.Google Scholar
Tager-Flusberg, H. & Joseph, R. M. (2003). Identifying neurocognitive phenotypes in autism. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B 358, 303–314.Google Scholar
Tannen, D. (2007). Talking voices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarplee, C. & Barrow, E. (1999). Delayed echoing as an interactional resource: a case study of a 3-year-old child on the autistic spectrum. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 6, 449–82.Google Scholar
Violette, J. & Swisher, L. (1992). Echolalic responses by a child with autism to four experimental conditions of sociolinguistic input. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 35, 139–47.Google Scholar
Wells, B., Corrin, J. & Local, J. (2008). Prosody and interaction in atypical and typical language development. Travaux Neuchâtelois de Linguistique 49, 135–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, B. & Local, J. (2009). Prosody as an interactional resource: a clinical linguistic perspective. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 11, 321–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, B., Peppé, S. & Goulandris, A. (2004). Intonation development from five to thirteen. Journal of Child Language 31, 749–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolff, S. & Chess, S. (1965). An analysis of the language of fourteen schizophrenic children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 6, 29–41.Google Scholar
Wootton, A. (1994). Object transfer, intersubjectivity and third position repair: early developmental observations of one child. Journal of Child Language 21, 543–64.Google Scholar
Wootton, A. (1997). Interaction and the development of mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wootton, A. (1999). An investigation of delayed echoing in a child with autism. Language 19, 359–81.Google Scholar