is this stimming?

[Spinkle]

Some background:

DS is 6 with ASD and S&L problems. He's done massively well from only having 25 words at 3 yrs old to full sentences now.

We get lots of echolalia (which is useful for finding out what's been said to him at school!) but also random 'stories'. Mostly based on Toy Story or Thomas. He starts this usually as we leave school. He doesn't usually require any interjections but sometimes I join in to be sociable. I put it down to wanting to say something but not knowing what to say, maybe?

He's 'with us' sometimes - asking about stuff around him, making comments, playing, having some sort of conversation.

And then, hit about 5pm and he's back into his world again. Is this stimming? Is he expressing his internal dialogue? He talks to himself in bed as he goes to sleep, as he wakes up..

I'm having a moan btw - with his language problems we never thought he'd talk so much!

Don't know about the stimming, but can sooo identify with your last comment.
My DS went from SLD to verbal diarrhoea. I often catch myself thinking 'why won't he just shut up with this constant random drivel' - and then i remember the years i spent worrying if anyone would ever understand him.
He's also a foghorn, with no volume control, and speaks in his sleep. The joys!
One thing my DS did say to me once when i asked him why he had to talk so much, was that he didn't like silence. He is often quieter when there is some talking programme on - he watches the news a lot. The only problem with that is he then has 6 million questions about the programme. didn't help yesterday as they had about the transport problems and showed a train - oh the questions we had about that

Yes, sounds like verbal stimming to me.

My two are so noisy!

ds2 is mostly delayed echolalia, with some actual communication coming nowadays

With them it's mostly noises rather than words. Both noises and words are verbal stims I think.

I think that if they don't have any communicative intent when they do it, it's stimming.

its likely delayed echolalia or Jargon according to what we have been told by SALT about DD2

Don't you think though that delayed echolalia and jargon are both self-stimulating behaviours? I know the noises my two make are very involuntary, very compulsive and really just the verbal equivalent of the twitches and the flapping.

at the moment, ds2 is saying "upte upte upte get ready for 2011 upte upte upte get ready for 2011" and ds1 is saying "aha aha aha it's impossible aha aha aha"

It's no different from when they flick their fingers in front of their faces.

Autism is weird, don't you think?

I always take DDs echolalia of her want to commucate with us but not always sure of a way to do it.
Jargon I never understood and yes your right Autisim is weird,

yes. You're right, sometimes echolalia can be communicative I suppose. Is she echolalic as in repeating back what you've just said, or delayed as in repeating words and phrases? or both? Mine have never really repeated what we've just said, it's always been phrases off the tv, things they heard ages ago, pulled out time and time again. I suppose delayed ecolalia can bee seen like someone in a foreign country flicking through a phrase book to try to find something that means what they want to say

So when ds2 would say "clifford the big red dog and tasty food, now at mcdonalds", he meant he was hungry.

But for him, since most of his gibberings are said on his own, to the wall, while spinning like a top... and are in no way directed at anyone, I think they're much more stims than an attempt to communicate.

Every child with autism is so different, aren't they? I always say that there are as many 'autisms' as there are children with autism. my 2 couldn't be more different!

Okay. I'm as confused as the rest of you, but I see echolalia as part of the developmental delay. For example, babies mimick long before the understand, then they realise that when they mimick a certain word, they get something they want.

So, if the mother says 'want banana?' and baby says 'banana' they get a banana, so next time they just say it.

I think that echolalia turns into communication when they realise that uttering a certain phrase or word gets them something they want, so it's a slow process but it isn't a thing in itself it is a stage of development.

Then, on top of that there is stimming. Certain sounds or combinations give pleasure so they repeat them for their own entertainment or rely on them to regulat their emotions. I think babies do this too, with 'bababa, gagaga' but babies don't have the extrodinary memory and the amount of exposure to the variety of sounds that older children have.

So what we all get, is a very strange combination of communication, echolalia and stimming which leaves most of us confused, frustrated or when in a better mood amused.

But I feel strongly that for all, there is progress towards communication. ASD is a developmental DELAY, not a developmental halt.

Anyone have the faintest idea what I'm going on about?

I think MN is MY STIM, regluation of emotions, echolalia outlet (repeatedly saying get a statement etc.)

DNiece (5, asd) has a habit of repeating "makapaka" and "iggle piggle". It's now our little in-joke - she says makapaka, I reply iggle piggle and she giggles her little head off, bless

On the other hand, I only get to see her every few weeks so don't have to put up with it 24/7/365...

we get lots of sponge bob echolalia which is certainlymore intresting than peppa pig but dd2 still echos back what we have said as well, so she does both.
She echos her sister alot, and for a while her way of starting a conversation at dinner tbale was "i hurt my finger"!!

but certainly has a verbal stims my fav is POTATO! LOL, although im sure from the amount of times she does it, her fav is a squak sound :)

lumpybumpyme, she normally does it when she's tired, so it could be that she associates In The Night Garden with bedtime? I can't stand Spongebob, or ITNG tbh, but it seems to work for her so I just go with it. I remember as a kid repeating words with different letters at the beginning just to see how they sounded, so I think maybe a lot of echolalic kids are just pausing on that development level for longer than most? Just a theory, let me know if I'm wrong.

Some of my favourite echolalic phrases are from a teenager I worked with. "What the wank", "Why you cotton-picking little..." and wolf-whistling are quite amusing until you're in the middle of a busy swimming pool/supermarket/high street LOL