Please define "Echolalia".

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Please Define... "Echo" lalia.

echo
4. a person who reflects or imitates another.

-lalia
1. indicating a speech defect or abnormality

Therefore, echolalia is a speech abnormality in which a person repeats someone else.

It's not necessarily other people that are repeated. Echolalia can also refer to behaviour where someone repeats words or phrases to themselves as a vocal stim.

if they repeat a phrase or word they heard in the past this is called delayed echolalia.if they imitate a person that they are in conversation with this is called imediate echolalia

I think animal noises (barking, meowing, purring) can also be echoed. It doesn't necessarily have to be a person.

For those who want full description of Echolalia.

What seems to have escaped posters is that echolalia is not pathogenic, but is developmental (a step toward typical verbal communication) and occurs in all speakers.

I get so sick of people always making anything associated with autism a disease, even on an autistic community forum.