Autistic children and accents

My son is Autistic and speaks with an American accent. He has picked it up from YouTube videos we believe. We speak with our usual accents (me being from Lancashire and his dad, his teachers and friends being Geordie). I would find it very strange and actually pretty upsetting if one of his teachers were to mimic an American accent back to him as it would seem to me like he was being made fun of. I don't see any benefit to you doing this at all and would advise you to stop.

My son is very aware and very social. He does not speak in a flat tone at all like someone above stated of all Autistic children. Very much a sweeping generalisation of an extremely diverse and fascinating condition. If you have met one Autistic person, you have met one Autistic person.

It’s very common I see it a lot in children with ASD. I’ve also seen staff start to put on the American accent when taking to the children. I have no idea why an adult would do it it sounds utterly ridiculous.

my son has ASD he doesn’t use an American accent but does use all American terms and names for things rather than English ones. Has done for years. He knows he does it but doesn’t know why.

My son is 21 and has autism up until about 16 he used an accent when talking to anyone out of the family or people he was comfortable with. It's like a shield for him I think to put something in between him and what he was doing/talking about, it gave him confidence to talk with people.

Also, some neurotypical children will adopt an American accent for the same reason.

I work in a nursery and its true. Some children will autism have american accents.
We assume that its due to over use of youtube videos.

Tell me this isn't real ffs 😂

I don't know about talking "properly" but do you speak with an American accent because you feel you want to relate to the child better or is it because you have some form of echolalia (or something) where you start speaking similarly to the person you're in a conversation with?

If the former, I don't think it's necessary unless the child has picked up on it and likes it too. If it's the latter, then I don't think you can help it, can you?

By the way, the child is speaking "properly", just with a different accent. It's normal among ND people.

Very much a sweeping generalisation! My DS is actually very outgoing, chatty, and sociable. What is true is that if a child, ASD or NT, is watching way too much YouTube, they’ll pick up that real corn dog American accent. My DD calls it The YouTube Shorts accent.

It’s common for young autistic children to talk in an American accent. It is NOT common for staff working with them to attempt to copy this! How bizarre!

DS2 is autistic and speaks with a slightly English accent when we are Scottish and live in Scotland. I'd find it very odd if people working with him adopted the same accent.
SOMES autistic people have a very flat affect and intonation when they speak. Others don't.

Why are you swearing? The child might have been American -that’s all I wanted to know. If it’s not his “normal accent”, how would you describe what he’s doing? I know lots of autistic children. Some have a somewhat robotic way of speaking but none has an American accent.

As an autistic individual and mum to an autistic my first thought was about the child. Have you asked them what they want? Are you the funny/cool member of staff that does the accent they like? Are you the member of staff that quietly annoys them as you’re muscling on their thing?

It's not uncommon apparently. I can't imagine why you would copy anyone's accent when talking to them though. It's a very, very weird thing to do!

My son is autistic, he does NOT talk in a flat tone and he does NOT lack socialisation. That’s an extremely sweeping generalisation!

Firstly autistic people speak in a very flat way which some people think sounds American. Secondly they lack socialisation with other people and often pick up their speech patterns from television. No he is not putting it on, it’s common among autistic people.

You should speak to the child in the same accent you speak to everyone else in the room. If you were working with an adult with an Indian accent would you use an Indian accent to talk to them?

It’s quite common. I worked in a special school and a lot of the kids had YouTube American accents. I’m American and the accents were almost caricatures of the American accent. It was like I was stuck on a John Wayne movie set, the accents were so exaggerated. My own DS is on the spectrum and does not have an American accent. He’s a standard Londoner despite being on the spectrum and living with a Californian.
Don’t mirror the pupils’ way of speaking. It’s not beneficial or necessary. Just be you.

It's not putting it on ffs. It's common in autistic children.

Definitely try to use your normal accent.

Why would you imitate someone? You wouldn't do that to a NT person - or if you did they'd definitely think you were strange or taking the p*ss.

Extremely common.

No OP, you don't copy people's accents when you talk to them. It's weird.

I have come across this when I was teaching. An autistic child speaking in an American accent. It wasn’t something we corrected. I don’t understand why you would need to speak in an American accent to the child? If a child had a ‘natural’ accent different to yours would you change your natural accent? I do recall an OFSTED inspector asking us whereabouts in America the child was from. That was funny.

This is extremely weird of you to to do, I am assuming this is a joke.

Why are you talking in an American accent?

Very common for autistic children