5 year old HFA still has repetitive language

[Anonymous]

My son who is smart and speaks in sentences, still has delayed echolalia. I thought this would be over by now. Sometimes he asks a question and then answers it himself. I think it definitely increases when he's anxious. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

[Anonymous]

Bump - I'm interested in this, too.

[Anonymous]

Is he in speech therapy? My son does that sometimes. We noticed he is basically having a speech therapy session with himself and we notice it the most when he is having a growth spurt and practicing or trying to figure it out. Talk to your speech therapist. Ours was not very concerned.

[Anonymous]

He's calming himself with the self-talk. Let him do it or his anxiety will increase.

[Anonymous]

I would wait him out awhile and see if it decreases. Like the other PP's said, it's a self soothing strategy - which is a good thing to have in times of anxiety! If it still persists when he is a little older you can talk to him about using "the voice inside his head" .... like the voice people use when they are reading to themselves. They can hear what is being read but no one else can.

[Anonymous]

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

My kid had speech therapy from 5 to 11. The repetitive language started dying down around 9-10. We also started removing source materials for scripts about that time. "If you are going to repeat an Annoying Orange episode word-for-word, or repeat phrases from it, then you can't watch Annoying Orange.")