Abstract:

Objective To explore the characteristics of echolalic speech of children with moderate to severe autism spectrum disorder (ASD) aged three to eight.

Methods From January to March, 2024, 15 minutes rehabilitation course video of five children with moderate to severe ASD aged three to eight were collected in institutional and family settings, respectively. Language sample analysis and self-compiled coding were used to analyze the echo speech sample content, structure, and collect their oral language ability. The correlation between the echo speech and case oral language ability was analyzed.

Results A total of 235 echoic speech-related speech rounds were recorded. Among them, the ratio of immediacy to delayed echo speech was 7∶1; one echo speech was found in every two to three speech responses, with average sentence length of 2.97 and average word length of 2.23. The frequency of verbs and nouns was high, accounting for 45.03% and 38.48%, respectively; and there were many declarative words and sentences, accounting for 72.58% on average. The type of echo speech structure was the most frequently at the end of the reconstructed discourse, accounting for 29.98% on average. The type, frequency, sentence length, sentence pattern and structure of echoic speech were not significantly different in institutional and family settings. The language ability scores of imitation sentence length, word understanding and naming were significantly correlated with the number, frequency, sentence length and sentence type frequency of echoic speech (r > 0.881, P < 0.01).

Conclusion Echoic speech activity in children with moderate to severe ASD aged three to eight shows transsituational stability, and is related with their understanding language and expressive language ability; characterized as instant echo speech, short sentence, the advantage of real words, declarative sentences, often repeat the end of the original sentence.

Key words: autism spectrum disorder, children, echolalia speech, language sample analysis