Echolalic Children Research Articles

Brief report: an evaluation of total communication vs vocal alone for teaching tacts

Total Communication (TC) and Vocal Alone (VA) are two teaching approaches used to facilitate vocal responding with children with language delays and autism. TC involves the simultaneous use of the manual sign and the spoken word. VA involves the use of the spoken word only. This single subject study aimed to compare the two approaches using an alternating treatment design to find which condition produced the most effective acquisition rate of vocal tacts for an echolalic child with autism. We also examined the effect of condition on speech articulation on targeted items and the child’s listener behaviour (selection) following tact only (speaker) training. An in depth phonological assessment was carried out pre test and the subject’s vocal utterances phonetically transcribed over the course of the study by a speech and language therapist (SALT). Results indicated that the TC condition produced six times more vocal tacts than the VA condition; results from the listener behaviour tests showed the subject was able to respond appropriately when given both the vocal and sign, but not with the vocal stimulus alone. The phonetic transcription yielded inconclusive results but indicated ways that such information could be used more effectively in future research.

Language-learning patterns in echolalic children

Echolalia has traditionally been considered to be a deviant, nonfunc tional behaviour. In contrast, an alternative perspective on echolalia has been proposed by considering the characteristics of echolalia in relation to a continuum of processing styles ranging from GESTALT to ANALYTIC. This paper applies a gestalt processing model to describe in depth the language-learning patterns of the echolalic child. Special emphasis is placed on how this processing model alters and expands our definition of echolalia and its role in the process of language acquisition. Application of the gestalt model in assessment and intervention is discussed.

Differential responding to content and intonation components of a complex auditory stimulus by nonverbal and echolalic autistic children

Anecdotal and scientific reports of the speech of autistic children suggest a possible differential responsiveness to limited components of speech stimuli. Previously nonverbal children who acquire speech seem to acquire content, but their speech is dysprosic, characterized by inappropriate intonation, pitch, rhythm, and modulation. In contrast, echolalic autistic children often display modulation and varied intonation but may demonstrate no comprehension of the verbal stimulus being echoed. The present experiment was conducted to systematically determine whether echolalic and nonverbal autistic children respond overselectively to the intonation or to the content of a complex auditory stimulus differing along these two dimensions. Ten autistic children (five echolalic and five nonverbal) and six normal children, matched for MA, were trained to bar press at the sound of an auditory complex stimulus designated as S+ and to withhold response to an auditory complex stimulus designated as S-. The auditory complex stimulus consisted of two components, content and intonation. Test trials consisting of various combinations of the intonation and content components were then presented. Results indicated that whereas the normal children responded to both components or to content, the nonverbal children showed evidence of selectively responding to content, and the echolalic children showed evidence of selectively responding to intonation. These results are discussed in terms of relating autistic stimulus overselectivity to deficits in speech production and to implications for designing language training programs for these children.

Learning and self-stimulation in mute and echolalic autistic children.

The effects of self-stimulation on task acquisition were studied in three mute low-functioning autistic and three echolalic higher-functioning autistic children in multiple-baseline designs. The study found that (a) the echolalic children were able to learn the task without external suppression of their self-stimulation and (b) the mute children were unable to learn the task until their self-stimulation was externally suppressed. It was suggested that the echolalic children may have acquired the ability to discriminate when to self-stimulate, so that their self-stimulation does not interfere with correct responding.

Response sets in autistic echolalia.

Immediate echolalia, i.e., the tendency to repeat all or part of a conversational partner's utterance, is one of rhe most prevalent symptoms of verbal autistic children ( 1 ) . Echolalia appears to be multiply determined, relating to aspects of the conversational setting, to the child's comprehension of the propositional content of an eliciting utterance, and to the form of such an utterance ( 2 ) . Based on observations of a single child, Shapiro ( 3 ) has suggested an additional factor, namely, a tendency to adopt an echolalic response set which, once established, may result in echoing an elicitor that can be responded to appropriately in other circumstances. To evaluate Shapiro's hypothesis more systematically, we analyzed the verbal responses of five autistic, echolalic children (age M = 11.5 yr.) to two types of elicitors: Sentence Completion items (e.g., mommy is holding the .. ... .. .) and Wh questions (e.g., What is the mommy holding?). These utterance types were accompanied by appropriate pictures and were randomly interspersed with Yes/No question forms (e.g., Is the mommy holding the baby?). Based on data previously collected in a pretest (requiring a non-verbal, pointing response to an array of pictures), it appeared that the subjects had some comprehension of the basic propositions contained in these elicitors. Additional details regarding subjects' characteristics and procedures are given by Paccia-Cooper and Curcio ( 2 ) . The present analyses were restricted to Sentence Completion and Wh question items since these provoked a relatively low incidence of echolalia ( M = 5.2%) compared to Yes/No questions ( M = 59.4%) and so seemed best suited for evaluating Shapiro's hypothesis. The incidence of echolalia in response to these two forms was examined under two conditions: when a subject's response on the immediately preceding trial was echolalic vs when it was of a non-echolalic, complementary nature. If a response set exists, then echolalia should occur more frequently when the previous response was echolalic than for instances when the previous response was not echolalic. Analyses of 195 trials indicated that the mean percent of echolalic responses to Sentence Completion and Wh question items was higher when the preceding response aVas echolalic ( M = 11.7%) than when the preceding response was not echolalic ( M = 096, t = 2.15, p < 0.05). There was no instance of a subject echoing an eliciting utrerance when he had just given a non-echolalic response. These data support Shapiro's hypothesis of an echolalic response set among autistic children.

The functions of immediate echolalia in autistic children.

This research was intended to discover how immediate echolalia functioned for autistic children in interactions with familial adults. For echolalic children were videotaped at school and at home, in both group and dyadic interactions in natural situations such as lunchtime, family activities, and play activities in school. After conducting a multilevel analysis (of over 1,000 utterances) of verbal and nonverbal factors, response latency, and intonation, it was discovered that immediate echolalia is far more than a meaningless behavior, as has been previously reported. Seven functional categories of echolalia were discovered and are discussed in reference to behavioral and linguistic features of each category. It is argue that researchers who propose intervention programs of ech-abatement may be overlooking the important communicative and cognitive functions echolalia may serve for the autistic child.

A human sound transducer/reproducer: Temporal capabilities of a profoundly echolalic child

Stimulus-echo latencies of a blind, severely echolalic child were measured to assess the capabilities of spontaneous transduction/reproduction of a verbal signal. Mean offset-to-onset latencies of 270 msec and onset-to-onset latencies of 792 msec are comparable to laboratory reaction times for syllable imitation. Results are considered within the theoretical context of physiological speech, i.e., externalized exposure of a psittacine level of verbal processing divorced from semantic, syntactic, lexical and, quite probably, phonological interference.

Probing comprehension of WH questions in an echolalic child

Comprehension of What, Where and When Wh questions was evaluated in a four-and-one-half year old echolalic boy who displayed in therapy and at home equivocal response to various question forms. Deficits of comprehension were traced to an inadequately developed deep structure (particularly adverbials) rather than to limited knowledge of Wh transformations. Delayed development of semantic rules, as in the case of time distinctions, may block acquisition of those syntactic rules dependent upon them.

Use of a peer model in language training in an echolalic child

A 10-yr-old girl, carrying the diagnostic label of childhood autism, was trained to speak at a normal voice volume and acquired a labeling vocabulary, via an imitation learning paradigm which utilized a peer model. Results indicate that the modeling paradigm facilitated both volume training and label acquisition.

Mitigated echolalia of children.

Incidence of mitigated echolalia, a subcategory of verbal echoic response first noted among adult aphasics, was tabulated from recorded conversations of 40 echolalic children. A total of 331 samples were classified according to three major types: pronominal reciprocation, echoic segment preceded or foliowed by utterance, and a third grouping of miscellaneous combinations.

Establishing functional speech in echolalic children

This paper is a summary of research by the authors in the development of speech in echolalic children. The procedures are based on operant behavior-modification techniques such as: (1) shaping and imitation training for the development of speech ; (2) fading in of new stimuli and fading out of verbal prompts to transfer the speech from imitative control to control by appropriate stimulus conditions; and (3) extinction and time-out from reinforcement for the reduction of inappropriate behavior in conjunction with the differential reinforcement of appropriate responses which are incompatible with the inappropriate behavior.