In the grand scheme of things, this is a tiny tiny thing, however it has been going on for months and is driving me bananas. DD is almost 4; she had some speech delay but is now very verbal although still lots of echolalia (which in the main we use to our advantage as she has some social communication problems and we are awaiting an ADOS assessment) but her understanding has always been pretty good at identifying things/quantities/concepts. Over the last few months, she has developed a habit of automatically coming out with a plausible opposite or similar word when she hears something;
eg. me: "Look DD, it's a cat"
DD: "its a DOG"
or, if we buy a two-pack of pyjamas, when we go to put one on, say a stripy pair, she will insist it is the other pair. If you say big, she is adamant you said little...and so on. This is really different to if she is trying to make a joke with words; this seems very automatic and if I try and hammer the point home she quickly becomes very distressed which is out of character. If I ignore it, she is very (loudly) insistant and will not drop it and carry on shouting. I wouldn't say it's a problem exactly but it does seem to be increasing and makes her quite distressed which definitely wasn't there before. It is far worse if she is on edge already about something.
Is this "usual" development? Either way, do you ignore it, use distraction, hope it disappears..?!