ABA/VB Question

[cyberseraphim]

Has anyone heard of the concept of 'echoic control' - I think the idea is that DS1 has to learn to echo all the speech sounds. He is verbal but speech sound ability varies from good to poor to awful. Is it realistic to think that speech sounds can be learned this way? He is great at following instructions and is very compliant but I suppose if he just can't say a sound....

We used to do verbal imitation on our ABA programme, DS did not have echolalia, maybe its similar?

Ds has echolalia but just not very accurate at times - his speech is rapid and garbled at times. I think this is focussing on the actual speech sounds

Verbal Im was sounds, not words or function of words. If you have the book Behavioural Intervention for Young Children with Autism (edited by Catherine Maurice among others), then I'm fairly sure its in there. I'll have a look at my copy later and see what it says.

Thanks - don't go to too much trouble. I think I sort of understand what it is - copying basic speech sounds (using ABA) but just wondered if anyone had had success !! DS1 has always understood function and purpose of speech (at the level he has ) but is really stuck with some sounds like 'l' and 'm'

they do echoic stuff with dd1 atschool.

FWIW, she is very verbal, but does struggle with some sounds (y, l, n, occasionally b and d - quite common ones for small ish children to muddle up, but she's not going to correct as easily as an NT child would)

they are also concentrating on loud/quietwith the echoics too.

I can't say I've noticed a huge improvement, but she does enjoy doing it, and I guess it's alluseful for compliance/attention span/general imitation mixed in with other demands