Ep. 104 Why We Shouldn't Eliminate Echolalia Hosted by Melanie Weber
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What is echolalia and why is it often misunderstood?
Hello and welcome to the NeuroAffirm show. I'm obviously not Jesse Ginsberg. My name is Melanie and I'm so excited to be taking over the show for today. So you may have seen me on other episodes of the live show or in our online trainings hosted by both Jesse and Chris. I've also done several online trainings in the NeuroAffirm Therapy Academy and I've spoken at state and local conventions all about how embracing neurodiversity And how that really changes everything when we support our autistic kids that way. I have been a speech pathologist for 10 years and the last four of those years I've had the honor of working alongside Jesse really helping SLPs understand how sensory and communication are deeply connected.
And today I am so excited to be taking over the show to talk about a client that absolutely changed everything for me. And his story set me off on a completely different path of how I view communication. And it's the reason I like firmly believe that we should never try to eliminate echolalia. And so we're going to be diving into that today. And before I go any further, I think it's incredibly important that we define what echolalia means because you could just do a quick Google search and it's going to tell you one thing. And I would love to share some insights about what I view echolalia as. So when I say echolalia or scripting, we're talking about the repetitive use of specific phrases. They're often drawn from media or conversations or previous experiences.
And in the past, echolalia was definitely viewed as meaningless. And even today, I feel like there's this narrative that we should just ignore it or and it'll go away or, oh, they're just using movie talk. And I think it's important that we remember that echolalia is a repetitive use of phrases, but that can come from movies or conversations. And so I've talked to a lot of autistic adults and, you know, people have said, well, what did people do before there was TV? You know, was Echolalia around? Yes, it was. And they were repeating conversations and things that they heard from other people, other phrases they picked up around town. So it doesn't have to come from media, but it's just really prevalent today that a lot of it does.
And even though in the past it was viewed as meaningless, there have been so many amazing studies and so many therapists who have spent their life really diving into this topic like Barry Prezant and Marge Blanc. and Ann Peters, and they have been able to show through client studies and just over time that echolalia is not random and it's not meaningless. And scripting is a way that a child can express their thoughts and their feelings and their needs. And this was especially true for my client that I'm going to tell you about today. And we're going to call him Andy. And when I started working with Andy, he was 15 years old and he had been in speech therapy since he was 18 months old. So talk about pressure.
How did Melanie’s client Andy’s repeated phrases reveal his anxiety?
His parents didn't put a lot of pressure on me, but I felt this pressure of, you know, I need to help him move forward in his communication. And when I started working with him, it was very obvious that he used a lot of echolalia to communicate. And he had lots of therapists, occupational therapists, behavior therapists, and they all told me, just ignore it. He does this sometimes. You can try to redirect, but it usually is just him regulating. It doesn't really mean anything. And he could like answer questions and we can have some conversations, but there would be days where his echolalia was higher than others. So he primarily relied on these echoed phrases or these scripts to communicate and When his past therapist just told me to ignore it, it never set right with me.
Like it didn't sit right with me, but I didn't have any other, like, I didn't have anything to say other than that doesn't feel good. I didn't have any evidence. I was a newer therapist. He was one of, you know, they had been with this client way longer than I had. He was new to me. So I just tried to do what they said and I ignored it or I redirected it and I tried to follow his lead.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is echolalia and why is it often misunderstood?
0:08–2:59
2
How did Melanie’s client Andy’s repeated phrases reveal his anxiety?
2:59–5:02
3
Why should therapists stop ignoring repeated scripts and start validating them?
5:02–6:52
4
What is Gestalt Language Development and how does it explain echolalia?
6:52–8:41
5
How can clinicians break down whole‑phrase scripts into smaller, usable language chunks?
8:41–10:51
6
What practical steps can we take to model intent and expand a child’s communication?
10:51–13:20
7
How did a strengths‑based, neuro‑affirming approach transform Andy’s language growth?
13:20–16:06
8
What key takeaways should professionals remember about using echolalia as a communication bridge?
16:06–18:57
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
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Ep. 124 Building Rapport Isn’t Enough...How Therapists Become Part of the Intervention
Ep. 123 Not Seeing Progress in Speech Therapy? Start Here.
Ep. 122 Screen Time Considerations for Autistic Kids
Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)